


Broken Clocks

by Gin_Juice



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Family Bonding, Gen, Murder, No Incest, POV Alternating, Post Season 2, Superpowers, The Commission, Time Travel, cocktails
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:41:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 92,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25959964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gin_Juice/pseuds/Gin_Juice
Summary: Having saved the world, the Hargreeves find themselves in a dramatically different 2019, with no money, no place to go, and a Ben-shaped hole in the middle of them.The only thing left to do is rebuild their lives from the ground up....Or fall headfirst into a new adventure and hope everything else sorts itself out.____________________________"So, what? Are there other versions of ourselves somewhere out there?""I doubt it. I think what's happened is that we've created a temporal paradox- this is our original timeline, and we exist with the same memories that we've always had, but the rest of the world moved on like we never left 1963."Five scrubbed a hand over his face, looking deeply weary. "We've essentially become castaways in time."They were all silent in the wake of that pronouncement."This is the worst sleepover I've ever been to," Klaus whispered.
Relationships: The Hargreeves Family
Comments: 637
Kudos: 622





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't going to write anything for season 2 of this show, so of course now here I am writing something for season 2 of this show. I'm trying out this new thing where my story has like, an actual plot? Not sure how that's going to go, but YOLO, I guess.
> 
> Fair warning, this story is going to feature several OCs, who are of varying levels of importance to the plot. The main focus will always be on the Hargreeves, but if original characters aren't your thing, you might not like this one.

It was immediately obvious that this was not the Ben they knew.

There was the scar, of course, and the patchy beard and the uniform, and if those didn’t give it away, the general air of hostility was a big clue.

But as they all stood there, staring at him like he was the worst part of a nightmare, he slipped his right hand into his pocket. That was something _their_ Ben had done all the time—not to reach for a weapon, but because he pinched his thumb and his middle finger together when he was nervous, and their father had always scolded him for having such an obvious tell.

It was gut-wrenching in its familiarity.

“All these years I thought your hair couldn’t get any dweebier,” Klaus breathed, wide-eyed. “But you went and you found a way.”

The Ben—who still wasn’t theirs, but who undeniably once had been—frowned.

“These are your predecessors, Number One,” their father’s sharp voice rang out.

Luther blinked at him over his shoulder, but it wasn’t Luther who he had been addressing.

“An iteration of the Sparrow Academy from an alternate timeline,” Reginald went on. “And it is their failures that led me to assemble the six of you.”

Diego grunted in indignation, and Allison pinched the soft part at the back of his arm to shut him up.

Vanya followed their father’s gaze up to the landing. Five curious faces peered back down at her from the shadows, none of them familiar.

Who were they, she wondered? Who were these people who had spent their lives wandering the same hallways, sleeping in the same beds, bending to the will of the same man that she had?

And Jesus, how many more people with superpowers _were_ there?

“I’m not sure the word ‘failure’ applies here,” Five said in a tight voice.

His left eyelid was twitching, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. In the past fourteen days, he’d gone from 1963 to 2019 to 1963 to 2019, and he had saved the world and eaten abut four meals and slept maybe ten hours. Stick a fork in him, he was _done._

“We stopped the Apocalypse, and you’re standing safe and sound in your child soldier compound instead of being turned into a splotch on the sidewalk. Pound for pound, I’d say that we’ve been pretty successful.”

“Child soldier compound?” one of the men on the balcony echoed.

Five glared up at him. “You’re _welcome.”_

Their father’s eyes flicked between them, calculating. “If that’s true, then you’ve exceeded my expectations,” he said. “Low as they were to begin with.”

He took a slow step towards them. He looked older and frailer than Diego had ever seen him, and he was possessed by a sudden urge to shove him to the floor and see how long it took for him to get up.

“You may stay here for the time being,” he said.

Less of an offer, more of an order, as everything that looked like kindness was with him.

The Ben stiffened, and the green, floating cube at the top of the stairs spun on its axis. “Six guest bedrooms to be prepared,” a digital voice announced.

Allison, who still had her hand against the back of Diego’s arm, felt his muscles tense.

 _‘Mom,’_ she realized dismally. Or something like her, anyhow.

“But Dad—“ The Ben started.

“Hold your tongue, Number One.” Their father wrapped his cane once against the floor. “Go make yourselves presentable, and we will convene in my study in one hour. I shall be expecting a full synopsis of everything that transpired after our meeting in 1963.”

“Wait, what?” someone at the top of the stairs muttered.

None of the Hargreeves—the original ones, at least—spoke for a long moment.

Klaus’s heart sank. This was how it ended, wasn’t it? They’d stay here, and they’d start getting competitive again, with each other and with Dad’s new sideshow attractions, and Team Zero would be over before they could even order matching T-shirts. He’d had a _plan_ for those T-shirts and everything.

“Fuck you,” Luther said suddenly, and then he froze, as though surprised at his own boldness.

Their father’s eyes narrowed. “Pardon?”

“Fuck you,” he repeated.

 _‘You may stay here for the time being,’_ like he was doing them a favor, like he hadn’t kept them essentially imprisoned here for years.

Luther looked around at the marble archways, the antique furniture, the imported rugs. It all looked exactly as he remembered, but none of it looked like home. This place had _never_ looked like home.

“I don’t want to stay here,” he realized out loud. “I don’t want to be anywhere near you.”

It was like setting off a chain reaction.

Diego stepped forward. “Yeah,” he said eagerly, “me neither. _Fuck_ you.”

He raised his voice to the balcony. “And fuck all of you, too.”

“What did _we_ do?” a tall dark-haired woman called down.

“Come on.” Diego turned on his heel, grabbing Allison by the elbow and putting his free hand against Klaus’s back. “Team Zero, out.”

“Oh, are we making a dramatic exit?” Klaus asked in delight. “I’m all for it, but maybe right after I use the facilities—“

“You don’t have to manhandle me,” said Allison. “I’m coming with you either—“

Diego shoved them both towards the door. _“Team Zero, out.”_

“I would advise against doing anything rash,” their father said. “You’ve already altered the timeline—there’s no telling what surprises may await you outside of these walls.”

“I think we can handle it,” Five said coolly as he strode towards the door. “We’ve had a lot of experience adapting, you know.”

Luther started to follow him, then veered off course to grab a bottle at random off the top of the liquor cabinet.

“We’re taking this,” he told their father, shaking it at him. “As thanks for saving the world.”

“That’s sweet and sour mix,” Five muttered as he passed by.

“Shut up,” Luther said out of the side of his mouth.

“There’s no alcohol in it.”

“Just keep walking, okay?”

Vanya hesitated a moment. Did another sweep of the room, where she had spent countless hours in another life.

“Well… bye.”

One of the guys on the landing offered her an uncertain wave. Their father pursed his lips.

Vanya took a few steps away, then stopped, and glanced over her shoulder.

“Listen,” she said. “If… if any of you ever want out of here, come find us, okay?”

She cast a lingering look at Ben. His right hand was still in his pocket.

“We can help you.”

She stepped through the door and pulled it shut behind her. The click it made, she thought, would reverberate through her mind forever.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the new 2019 is off to an excellent start as the Hargreeves become squatters and break things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, spoiler alert, I tried to make the time-travel stuff as coherent as I could, but... I feel like it doesn't make much sense in the show, either? Like, how tf would jumping from 1963 to the day after the world was supposed to end have fixed anything? Wouldn't they just get stuck in an infinite loop of Apocalypses? So whatever, let's just say that Five is the only one smart enough to get it and move on.
> 
> Also, the 'No Incest' tag is there for a reason. There was too much Luther/Allison stuff to pretend it doesn't exist, but I'm going to address it later. In a way that does not involve any sibling-on-sibling action. (No judgement if you're into those ships, tho.)

Allison sat on a public bench with her legs crossed, watching Five count their money for the third time and wishing like crazy that she’d brought her cigarettes with her from the 60’s.

They had stopped a few blocks from the Academy, to take inventory of their resources and come up with a plan.

Their resources, as it turned out, were $42.17, half a bottle of sweet and sour mix, and a packet of trail mix Vanya had found in her pocket. What kind of plan could be cobbled together from there remained to be seen.

“I left almost two hundred dollars in a cigar box on Elliot’s kitchen counter,” Luther said woefully. “Why didn’t I bring it?”

Allison held back a sigh. “Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

 _“I_ might beat you up over it,” mumbled Diego.

Vanya took a seat on the bench. “What about you?” she asked Klaus. “Didn’t your cult have some money? Do you have a bank account somewhere?”

He offered her a nervous smile. “We-e-ell… If we have a way of getting to California, I’ve got a box with ten grand in it buried in a field.”

Allison frowned.

Klaus flitted his hands around. “Ben was always on me to be more responsible with my money,” he said defensively. “Like _he_ knew what to do with it, either. So I buried it all under a bush and said ‘Look, Ben, it’s a hedge fund!’”

Five glared at him. “The part I hate most about that is that it’s actually almost funny.”

“We still have the briefcase,” Luther pointed out, holding it up. “I don’t think we should risk going back to Dallas for my cigar box, but do you remember exactly where you buried yours?”

Klaus sucked a breath in through his teeth.

Allison pressed a hand to her forehead. “On a scale of one to ten, how dumb would we look going back to Dad and saying we changed our minds?”

“Ten,” said Vanya.

“Twelve,” said Diego.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Klaus. “I think it would show how much we’ve grown and matured in the last twenty minutes.”

Luther kicked half-heartedly at a discarded coffee cup on the sidewalk. “Maybe… what about your apartment, Vanya?”

She shrugged. “It couldn’t hurt to check, I guess.”

“I’ll go to the gym,” said Diego. “See if… See what’s up.”

They weren’t going to find their old lives there, ready to be picked up again. Nobody wanted to say it, but they all knew it.

But, they were all also tired and hungry and shell-shocked and Klaus was doing the ‘gotta pee’ dance, and if they didn’t do _something,_ they were going to wind up at each other’s throats.

Allison needed a few minutes alone, anyway.

Five got on a bus with Vanya, and Klaus got on a different bus with Diego. Luther sat down on the bench, the briefcase in one hand and the bottle of sweet and sour mix in the other, and stared out bleakly into the street.

Allison uncrossed her legs and stood up.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

He nodded without looking at her.

There was a payphone half a block up, and her fingers trembled as she slotted quarters into it.

“Hello?”

Allison swallowed. Her ex-mother-in-law. Not at all who she wanted to talk to—like, ever again, really—but their house had been in the family since 1912, and not even a fully-realized Apocalypse could rout them out of there. She had known the number would be the same.

“Hi,” she exhaled. “I… I’m looking for Patrick? Is he home?”

“Oh.” She sounded surprised. “No, I’m sorry, this is his parents’ house—Patrick hasn’t lived here in years. But I can take a message, if you like.”

Allison clenched the phone cord between her fingers. “Yeah, please. My name’s Allison.”

She’d hoped that might trigger something, anything, but there was only a vague ‘Mmhm’ on the other end.

“I—I found this backpack in the park,” she lied. “Like, a children’s backpack, and it has one of those contact cards for if the kid gets lost, you know? And it had this number on it, and the name Patrick.”

She drew in a breath for courage. “The backpack has ‘Claire’ embroidered on it,” she said. “Is that your granddaughter, maybe?”

“No,” Patrick’s mother told her. “No, I’m afraid not. We don’t have any grandchildren.”

…Oh. Oh. Allison had been expecting this, couldn’t even pretend to be surprised, but… _Oh._

“It’s awfully strange that somebody would have put our number down as a contact,” her mother-in-law was musing out loud. “Are you sure you read it right? Well, I guess that you must have, if Patrick’s name was on it. Gosh, this is just _awfully_ strange.”

Allison swallowed. “Actually, now that you mention it, I think I might have swapped two of the digits around,” she said. “There must be a different Patrick, who has a phone number close to this one. Just—one of those weird coincidences, you know?”

The woman on the other end laughed. “Life is funny like that sometimes, isn’t it?”

Allison squeezed her eyes closed to stop the tears from spilling over.

“Yeah,” she agreed softly. “It sure is.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Klaus leaned against the outside wall of the gym, watching people pass by and wishing like crazy he’d brought more clothing with him from the 60’s.

It had been a hell of an era for fashion. He’d loved it all—the bellbottoms and the A-line dresses and the geometric patterns and the go-go boots and the tie-dye and the mini-skirts.

2019 was sorely lacking in comparison. Sweatpants Central out here.

“Jeez, what’s the deal with the walkie-talkies?” Klaus asked, studying a man in a business suit who was speaking into one as he strolled by. “That’s like the fifth person I’ve seen with—“

He stopped. There was nobody there to hear him. Diego was inside, and Ben was… elsewhere.

Klaus wrapped one arm around his midsection. When was the last time he’d been truly alone like this? He couldn’t remember.

The door opened with a bang, and Diego stormed out into the parking lot.

“No dice,” he said without breaking his stride. “Let’s go.”

Klaus pushed away from the wall and hurried after him.

“Was Al there?”

“Yep.”

“But he doesn’t remember you?”

“Nope.”

Diego was wearing his pissed off face, but Klaus doubted anger was the problem here.

He brushed a tentative hand over his shoulder as they hustled to the bus stop.

“I’m sorry, Diego.”

Diego jerked away from his touch, as though by reflex.

“S’fine.”

“It’s not.” Klaus skirted around a utility pole to avoid coming into contact with him again as he squeezed past it. “It sucks, when somebody who should know you really well looks at you like you’re a stranger. It’s just—it feels really awful. I know.”

Diego slowed his pace, and glanced at him from the corner of his eye.

“You mean Ben.”

Klaus thought of his last conversation with Dave, and how it would maybe be his last _ever_ conversation with Dave.

“Yeah, Ben definitely makes the list,” he agreed.

Diego grunted. “I don’t know why I even care,” he mumbled in confession. “Al was a fucking prick ninety nine percent of the time, anyway.”

“Well, I thought you guys would make a cute couple,” Klaus told him, mostly because he wasn’t sure what else to say.

Diego stopped walking and made a face at him.

“You never met Al.”

“Oh, I didn’t need to,” Klaus promised. “The way you talk about him, is just—“ He twirled a hand “—so ripe with longing.”

“He’s an old man.”

“Your mouth says one thing, but the tenderness in your eyes tells a different story.”

“He’s shaped like an angry pear.”

“Oh my God. You are positively _aquiver_ with desire right now. Stop it, you’re embarrassing me in public.”

Diego looked at him for a long moment.

“You’re an idiot,” he said appreciatively.

Klaus bugged out his eyes and opened his mouth into an oversized smile.

Diego swatted his ribs, not hard enough to make it hurt. “Come on. Let’s get back to the bench we live on now.”

Oh, Christ. He could tell his siblings were worried about it, but this wasn’t Klaus’s first rodeo with homelessness. He had so much wisdom to impart.

He trotted after Diego down the street. “We can’t sleep on a bench,” he lectured. “The cops will shoo you _right_ away. What you want to do is keep your eyes peeled for a refrigerator box…”

{}{}{}{}{}

Five sat on the curb by the bus stop, watching a little girl buy a soft pretzel from a cart and wishing like crazy he’d brought a sandwich with him from the 60’s.

He hazarded a glance at Vanya, who was sitting next to him with her arms hugged around her knees and a blank expression on her face.

They’d both known that finding her apartment intact was a long shot. But she was not taking the discovery that it had been wiped out of existence and replaced by a dollar store well at all.

“It wasn’t that great of an apartment, anyway,” he told her, in a tone that he hoped was reassuring. “I don’t know if you remember it.”

“I remember it. It was okay.” She squeezed her legs tighter. “All my stuff was there.”

He shrugged. “Stuff is replaceable.”

“I had just paid my rent,” she said mournfully. “I was halfway through a book, and I forget the title and now I guess I’ll never know how it ends. I’d bought a bottle of scotch the day before Dad died and I didn’t have even one drink out of it.”

She dropped her chin to her knees.

“My violin was there.”

There was a catch in her voice. Five shifted uncomfortably on the curb.

“What kind of scotch?” he asked.

“Some fancy kind that was on sale,” she said. “It said it was aged sixteen years. I don’t know if that’s good or not.”

“Pretty good.” He paused. “I’m sorry about your apartment.”

Vanya raised her head. “It’s okay,” she said unconvincingly. “I—Well. We have bigger problems to worry about right now.”

She studied him for a moment. “How are you holding up? You must be exhausted.”

“I’m fine.” Across the street, the little girl was taking her sweet time eating her pretzel. Savoring it. Rubbing it in his fucking face. “Just great.”

Vanya had been watching him glare at the girl, and she averted her eyes when he turned back to her.

“We’ll all feel better after getting some sleep,” she said, a tinge of sympathy in her voice. “…If we can find someplace to sleep, I guess.”

Five drew in a deep breath through his nose. He had really been hoping that it wouldn’t come to this.

“About that.”

Vanya cocked her head at him. Her pupils were the size of dinner plates. A lingering effect of the torture the FBI had put her through, he assumed, though she was holding it together remarkably well.

“There’s a place. The Commission owns it, so I think it’ll still be there. I was hoping we could figure out _anything_ else, but…” He offered her a tight smile. “Desperate times.”

Her brows raised in surprise. “Seriously? And… they’ll just let us stay there?”

“For right now. It’s more sustainable than having Allison rumor the front desk clerk at a hotel indefinitely, at any rate.”

Vanya looked somewhat dubious. He lifted his chin.

“Trust me,” he said, and then because hearing the words out loud might let him believe that they were true, he added, “I’ve got everything under control.”

It would have been more convincing if his stomach hadn’t growled right afterwards.

Vanya dug into her pocket, and wordlessly offered him her trail mix.

{}{}{}{}{}

Evening was falling by the time they reached the house.

It was a rowhome on a quiet side street, with brown paper covering the windows from the inside, and a sagging picket fence to protect about four square feet of front yard.

Allison gazed up at the crumbling brick façade.

“The Commission owns this?” she asked skeptically.

“Mm,” said Five. “The Handler brought me here once, but they had to stop using it a while back. One gunfight in the kitchen is bad luck—eleven, and the neighbors start sensing a pattern.”

Diego was eyeing the cracks spreading upwards like cobwebs from the foundation. “How long is ‘a while back,’ exactly?” he asked. “The last time you were here, were people getting around by car or by mule?”

“Or by swimming, since we hadn’t evolved legs and crawled out of the sea yet?” asked Klaus.

Five ignored them in favor of vanishing inside with a bright blue ‘pop.’

As he opened the front gate, Luther cast them both a reproachful look. “It’s a roof over our heads and it’s free,” he said. “And it really doesn’t look that ba—“

The gate’s hinges detached from their rotten post, and it swung loose in his hand.

He propped it gingerly against the fence.

“Uh… this was like that when we got here.”

The inside was better than any of them had been expecting. Not _good_ by any stretch of the imagination, but close to inhabitable.

The air was dry and musty—which was better than wet and musty, at least—and everything was covered in a layer of dust. The furniture was fussy, delicate wood with pink satin upholstery that had maybe once been red, and there was an old Victrola in one corner of the living room, but no television. The rug crunched when it was stepped on.

“Lights don’t work,” Diego commented, fiddling with the wall switch.

“Water’s on, though!” Klaus called from the kitchen, which he had been the only one brave enough to venture into.

Allison studied the drop ceiling with unease. “Do you think there’s mice here?”

Vanya stepped back from the bookshelf, her face angled upwards.

“No,” she said after a long moment. “I don’t hear any.”

Luther stared at her agog. “You can talk to animals?”

“What? No, Luther—“

Five reappeared with a flash of blue.

“Three bedrooms, one bathroom,” he announced. “We’re going to have to double up.”

Klaus sprinted out of the kitchen with a wine glass full of water. “Dibs!” he yelled, thundering up the stairs.

“Dibs on what?” Diego demanded, already chasing after him.

“I don’t know yet! Just—dibs!”

After they had left, Five eased himself into an armchair. It creaked forebodingly even under his slight weight.

“There are two queen-sized beds and one double,” he said. “So we’ll have to come up with a sleeping configuration that’s agreeable to everyone.”

His eyes flickered between Allison and Luther. Vanya suddenly became very interested in the crunchy carpet.

“I don’t mind sharing,” said Luther.

“I’m sure you don’t,” Five mumbled under his breath.

“With anyone. I could share with anyone at all, and it would be fine.”

“I’m sure it would.”

Luther was gazing at Allison with open longing. “I am so, so okay with sharing a bed—“

Vanya cleared her throat. “You know what,” she said, sliding one foot back towards the door. “I bet that everybody’s really hungry, and I saw this pizza place like a block over—“

“I’ll come with you,” Five offered.

“No, I’ll go,” said Allison. She offered him and Luther a smile that looked almost natural. “You guys stay and fight with Diego and Klaus over which bed you’re taking. I’ll share the double with Vanya.”

There was a shriek from upstairs, followed by a crash. Footsteps thudded overhead, and then Diego’s face popped over the railing.

“The dresser in the back bedroom was also broken when we got here,” he informed them.

Forty-five minutes later, Allison and Vanya returned with an extra large pizza and as many napkins as they’d been able to steal to be used as toilet paper. There were only four chairs at the kitchen table, so Klaus wiped the glass coffee table clean with a throw pillow, and the six of them settled down for the first family dinner of their adult lives.

“We need to get candles or something,” Diego said as he groped around for a plate. “I can’t see shit in here.”

“Hold on.” Vanya closed her eyes for a moment and then began to glow, a soft bubble of watered-down moonlight.

Allison extended a curious hand towards her. “Oh, cool,” she said. “Like a human nightlight.”

Vanya leaned back. “You shouldn’t get too close,” she said nervously. “It’s not a nightlight, really, more like… what do you call those things that electrocute moths?”

Klaus, with all his typical consideration for health and safety, lunged right past her to grab a slice of pizza.

“Real cheese,” he moaned, already stuffing it in his mouth. He pressed a hand to his heart and threw Diego a look of sympathy. “I am _so_ sorry you’re going to be sharing a bed with me tonight.”

Luther ate his food slowly and deliberately, as if that would make him fuller, and Five hunched over his plate like a buzzard protecting the most choice piece of roadkill.

Finally, when the food was gone and Vanya’s light was starting to flicker, Luther coughed a little and asked, “So… should we talk about how we don’t exist anymore?”

The quiet stretched and elongated between them. Vanya’s light dimmed by degrees.

“It’s an oversimplification to say that we don’t exist,” Five said into the semi-dark. “This is our original timeline, after all. This is exactly where we’re meant to be.”

Diego stretched his legs out in front of him. "So, what?” he asked. There was an edge to his voice. “Are there other versions of ourselves somewhere out there?"

"I doubt it. I think what's happened is that we've created a temporal paradox- we exist with the same memories that we've always had, but the rest of the world moved on like we never left 1963."

Five scrubbed a hand over his face, looking deeply weary. "We've essentially become castaways in time."

They were all silent in the wake of that pronouncement.

"This is the worst sleepover I've ever been to," Klaus whispered.

“But—“ Luther hesitated. “I don’t totally get all this time-travel stuff, but what about the old you? That we sent to 2019? I _saw_ us, on the other side of the portal.”

“Did I miss something here?” Diego muttered to Klaus, who shrugged.

Allison sucked in a breath. “Right,” she said, oddly excited. “Right, if we stopped the 2019 Apocalypse, then we wouldn’t have had any reason to go back to 1963, so…”

“Hence the temporal paradox,” said Five.

This would usually be the point that he’d start getting frustrated with them, but he only sounded defeated.

“It should have been closing a loop,” he said. “But either we changed too much in the past, or something changed in 2019, and the timeline split off in at least two different directions instead. Likely more.”

“Why more?” asked Klaus. He counted on his fingers. “There’s classic flavor 2019 us, and new and improved 1960’s us. I love us and everything, but I think that’s enough. That’s enough us.”

“Too much us,” said Vanya, a little perturbed.

“No, no, you always want a back-up copy.”

“It’s probably more than one divergence because that’s what happens when the timestream is destabilized,” Five cut in. He held up the glass he’d been drinking out of, and ran a finger over a crack down the side. “Imagine this represents all of time. There’s only one small break, but—“

He threw it at the floor. The glass bounced once on the carpet, then rolled to a stop next to the coffee table.

Five glowered at it. “…Pretend that shattered.”

Allison leaned forward in her chair. “But that means there might be a timeline where everything is how we left it, right?”

Her eagerness was almost tangible.

Five leaned his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. “Maybe,” he sighed. “Maybe. Maybe there’s a timeline where we’re all dead or where the dinosaurs never went extinct or where coffee doesn’t exist. I don’t fucking know anymore.”

It was strange, hearing Five sound so lost. He was always full of plans and piss and vinegar and caffeine. He had been the one steering this ship ever since he’d come crashing into their father’s funeral, and now, if he had no answers, they were just… adrift.

Five snored.

Luther heaved a sigh, and in the seconds before Vanya’s light died altogether, they all saw his shoulders slump.

“Talk more tomorrow, I guess,” he said tiredly.

His oversized form lumbered through the shadows and scooped Five into his arms. Five’s head lolled against his shoulder, in the kind of deep sleep only a child could reach.

“Good night,” Luther said, sotto voce.

{}{}{}{}{}

Vanya laid on her back in the bed, staring up at the ceiling as her mind oscillated.

She thought of first times and last times she had seen Ben’s face, of worlds ended and worlds saved, of the freckles on her nose and the freckles on Harlan’s and tears in Sissy’s eyes and tears in Lila’s, all those images expanding and collapsing in on themselves in an infinite loop.

 _You’re still high on acid,_ a kindly internal voice informed her.

Vanya let her eyes flutter closed. She felt like she was floating.

How easy would it be to just… leave here, she wondered? The idea coiled through her mind like a venomous snake.

She could get up and go, rebuild the small, orderly life she’d had before all this. Get back on her medication. Find a new orchestra to play in. Steer clear of Dad, and his new kids, and put some distance between herself and her siblings again, too, because they were infinitely better off without her, and what good had ever come of them all being together?

 _Your sister is crying,_ the voice pointed out.

Oh.

Vanya rolled over on her side to face her back, which shook as she muffled her sobs in the sheets.

“Allison,” she murmured.

With a shuddering breath, Allison turned over and pressed herself into Vanya’s waiting arms.

Vanya squeezed her tight, tears trickling down the side of her neck, and all thoughts of leaving evaporated into the dark.

{}{}{}{}{}

Luther had carried Five upstairs, taken off his shoes, tucked him into bed, and climbed in next to him all without rousing him, so naturally he decided to wake up the moment Luther himself was starting to fall asleep.

“Variables,” he slurred.

Luther cracked open one eye. “What?”

“Variables. I can, I’m gonna—“ Five started to push himself up into a kneeling position, but his arm must have been asleep, because he fell face-first into his pillow instead.

“I’m gonna make a new equation,” he said drowsily. “To jump between timelines. Gimme a pencil.”

“I… didn’t take a pencil with me to bed.” Luther rubbed at one eye. “And also it’s late, and it’s dark, and there’s no lights here, so…”

“S’can’t wait,” Five told him, trying to untangle his leg from the sheets. It was like watching a particularly uncoordinated seal attempt to escape a fishing net. “The briefcase only takes us forwards and backwards. We need to go, uh. Go sideways. So I’ve gotta do it myself.”

“Can’t we go sideways tomorrow?” Luther wondered.

“No. No.” Five shook out his dead arm. “I fucked this up. Imma fix it.”

Luther sighed. “You didn’t fuck up,” he said. “Nobody blames you for anything that happened, Five. Just—rest for right now, okay?”

“No rest for the wicked,” he retorted, although it was obvious he was struggling to keep his eyes open.

After a second of deliberation, Luther put a hand on his back, and traced the number ‘one’ over it with his fingertip.

“Pretty sure you’ve earned it,” he said as he traced a two. “We all would have been dead ten times over if it wasn’t for you.”

Five didn’t answer as he traced a three, and then a four. Mom had used to do this, sometimes, when Luther couldn’t sleep as a kid, and he guessed she must have done it for the rest of them, too.

“Get some sleep,” he urged in a low voice. “We’ll figure out what to do next in the morning.”

“You mean _I’ll_ figure out what to do next,” Five mumbled into his pillow, but he was relaxing under Luther’s hand.

“Yeah, probably.” Luther smiled as he reached seven, and started over from the top. “I’ll help you find a pencil, though.”

Five made a snuffly little sound halfway between a yawn and a laugh, and was asleep before Luther got to three.

{}{}{}{}{}

“Diego,” Klaus whispered.

“Mm?”

“Your feet stink. Like. Really bad.”

Diego adjusted his pillow. “If you would lie in the bed the right way, they wouldn’t be in your face.”

“I can’t,” Klaus whined. “There’s still a big-ass wet spot up there.”

“And whose fault is that? I _told_ you not to drink water lying down.”

Klaus stuck his big toe into Diego’s ear as he turned over.

“Jesus, shit, don’t—!” he exclaimed, pushing Klaus’s flailing legs away.

“Stop!” Klaus cried, twisting away from him. “Oh my God, why are your toenails so long?! You’re going to take out one of my eyes—“

“They don’t let you have clippers in a mental asylum!”

“You still have teeth, don’t you?”

Diego threw his upper body across Klaus’s knees, and Klaus smacked his head against the wall trying to buck his hold.

“That’s _gross.”_

“Says the guy whose feet smell like old cheese!”

There was a faint knock on the door.

“Uh… guys? Can you stop yelling, and… whatever it is you’re doing in there?”

Diego froze and glared in Klaus’s general direction. “Now look what you did,” he hissed. “You woke up Vanya.”

 _“I_ woke up Vanya?”

“Sorry,” Diego called. “We’ll be quiet.”

“It’s okay,” her muffled voice replied. “Good night.”

As her footsteps padded down the hall, Diego released Klaus with a shove and rolled over onto his side.

“Fucking screaming in the middle of the night,” he grumbled into his pillow. “I can’t believe you.”

The sheets rustled as Klaus sat up. His breath tickled over Diego’s neck.

“When you fall asleep,” he whispered, “I’m gonna fart on you _so hard.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was anybody else wondering wtf was up with all the fart jokes this season? Don't get me wrong, I laughed at all of them because I am a child, but it caught me off-guard. Anyway, have some more, I guess.


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Hargreeves do some spring cleaning, Klaus goes on a crime spree, and Five renews an old acquaintance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note- there is NO OC romance in this story, in the past present or future. Canon pairings only, as God intended.

All of the Hargreeves had learned, at one point or another, how difficult it was to start life over from scratch.

Vanya and Diego had learned it upon leaving home for the first time. Luther and Allison had learned it upon crash-landing in the 60’s, one with no powers and the other with no guiding orders. Five had learned it at age thirteen, staring at the charred remains of everything he held dear, and Klaus had learned it over and over and over again, each time he’d left rehab and thought _‘Now what?’_

The easiest way to get through the day, sometimes, was to focus on the small stuff. Think about what to have for lunch, like it was as easy to put yourself together as it was a ham sandwich, and pretend that it was fine to not know where your life was going or what you wanted out of it, because, hey, at least you’d found some clean socks to wear.

If you stared at the little things for long enough, they started looking like the big things.

Luther scrutinized the shopping list he was making.

“Do you guys think it’s worse to clean yourself with dish soap, or to wash dishes with people soap?”

Vanya leaned out from the kitchen, where she and Allison were attempting to scrub a very old, very large bloodstain off the floor.

“We don’t have enough money for both?” she asked. “I mean, you can get a bar of hand soap for less than a dollar.”

“Well…” Luther scratched the side of his head with his pencil. “We need toilet paper, and bleach, and trash bags, deodorant, toothbrushes, toothpaste… I think that’s probably the rest of what we have, just about.”

Their current funds were sitting at nineteen dollars and sixty eight cents. There had originally been a little more, but Klaus had taken two fifty in loose change and promised he could feed them all for the week with it.

That had been two hours ago. The old Klaus would have been high as a kite in an alley someplace by now, but the new Klaus... was _probably_ coming back, and maybe even with something to eat.

Diego opened the front door and shook out the towel he was using as a dust rag.

“Take off toilet paper and add shampoo,” he said. “You can’t clean long hair with soap, it dries it out.”

“We can’t have that,” Five said, monotone. He was sweeping the gross rug with a broom, in long, slow strokes like every movement hurt. “Your hair is the part about you I like the most.”

Diego narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously.

“We need toilet paper, though,” said Luther. He frowned at the list.

Allison had started it, then Five had wrestled it away from her after she asked if he needed new underwear since he’d been wearing the same pair for at least a week straight, and then Luther had taken it off _his_ hands after he tried to argue that dark roast was a necessity of daily life.

“I… don’t think there _is_ anything we can take off, to be honest.”

“We’ll keep stealing napkins,” Diego insisted. “I’ve never paid for toilet paper in my life, and I’m not starting now that we’re broke.”

“You’ve never paid for toilet paper,” Five repeated. “Really.”

“Really.”

“How is that even possible?” Luther asked dubiously.

Diego kicked the door closed and slung the towel over his shoulder, a man of mystery covered in dust. “I’ve got my ways.”

“You pick the _weirdest_ stuff to brag about,” Allison called from the kitchen.

She had seemed a little down all morning, but in that moment, she sounded genuinely tickled.

Someone knocked on the door to the rhythm of ‘Shave and a Haircut.’

“IT’S KLAUS,” Klaus shouted, as if there had been any doubt. “THAT’S GOING TO BE MY SECRET KNOCK SO YOU GUYS ALWAYS KNOW IT’S ME, OKAY?”

“Smart,” Diego noted, opening the door again.

Klaus stood there with a full shopping cart, which he maneuvered over the door stop with practiced ease.

Luther’s mouth watered at the sight of so much food. He’d been careful not to take more than his share of last night’s pizza because they were all hungry, but God, he could eat a horse. Or the sofa. One of his siblings, even.

Diego was into healthy living. He’d probably taste okay.

“Oh, wow,” Allison said as she and Vanya came in from the kitchen. “You stole a whole grocery store, huh?”

“Nope!” Klaus reached into the cart and ripped open a bag of apples. “I just looked for stuff that was past its expiration date that they hadn’t pulled off the shelves yet.”

Five sniffed the yogurt cup he’d just opened, shrugged, and started scooping it out with his finger.

“And they let you have it for free?” asked Vanya, impressed. “I wouldn’t have ever thought of that.”

“Well, not exactly.” Klaus lifted out a birthday cake with a ‘Baked Fresh’ sticker on it. “I told them corporate sent me in as a secret shopper and I was claiming all this as evidence that they were slacking on the job.”

“…I wouldn’t have ever thought of that, either.”

Luther set the core of his apple on the coffee table. “Do you still have the money?” he asked. “Because if you do, we can get dish soap _and_ people soap.”

“Park Avenue, here we come,” muttered Five.

Klaus dug into his pocket and pulled out a handful of change.

“Two dollars,” he announced, dumping it onto the table.

“What happened to the other fifty cents?”

Klaus reached into his other pocket, and produced a gumball.

“Seriously?” Diego demanded as Allison sighed.

Klaus twirled away with a bag of goldfish. “Shut up and eat your breakfast cake, you ingrates,” he said airily.

Breakfast was… sugary, and a little stale, but it was still edible, and the energy in the room noticeably picked up when they were done.

Klaus hit the streets again with his shopping cart and the list they’d made, and Luther started mopping the kitchen floor until Diego told him he was doing it wrong, and took over as the professional mopper of floors.

Allison sang ‘The Locomotion’ under her breath as she took inventory of the dishes. Vanya brought all the pillows outside and whacked the dust out of them against the cinderblock wall that separated their backyard from the alley behind it. They all theorized about what horrors might await them in the basement before deciding that was a project for another time, and then, when Five kicked a dial on the stove as he was kneeling on top of it to see what was in the cabinets above, they got the best news any of them had heard in days.

“The electricity works!” Allison gasped as Five examined the welt raising on his leg.

“We’ll have to add new lightbulbs to our shopping list,” said Luther, scanning the ceiling.

Allison set aside the teacup she’d been drying with a laugh. “Oh my _God,_ I am so happy. We don’t have to live in darkness, we can cook real food, we have…”

She trailed off, staring across the room. Everyone followed her line of sight to the refrigerator.

Luther coughed. “Uh… I guess we should see what’s in there, huh?”

Vanya turned away hastily from the sink. “Let’s go to the bathroom and clean your burn up,” she told Five, wiping her wet hands on the back of her pants.

“Yes,” he said, the most agreeable he had ever been. “Yes, let’s go do that immediately.”

Diego watched them both race up the stairs with a scowl. “This does not embody the spirit of Team Zero!” he called after them.

A pillow sailed over the railing towards his head.

“THAT’S STRIKE TWO, ASSHOLE!”

Allison turned to Luther, looking pained. “Maybe we should wait until Klaus comes home with the bleach.”

“Yeah,” he agreed with a sigh of relief. “Good idea.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Klaus wheeled his cart up the aisle of the pharmacy, bobbing a quick nod of acknowledgement to the employee standing sentry between the self-checkout counters and the exit.

He took a bottle of hand lotion out, and scanned it.

“Oh.”

“Something wrong?” the employee asked.

Klaus turned around. “Yes, actually—it said on the shelf that this lotion was on sale for five bucks, but it’s showing up on the little doohickey here as $13.99.”

The woman came closer and took the bottle from his hand.

“This was on sale?” she asked, studying the bottom.

“For five bucks,” he repeated.

“There’s no clearance sticker on it.”

She looked up at him. He looked back, smiling.

“Must have fallen off.” She took a step backwards. “I’ll go get you one with a sticker.”

“Muchas gracias!” Klaus said in appreciation.

As soon as she was gone, he grabbed the entire stack of plastic bags off the self-checkout, and pushed his cart out the door, humming happily.

This cowboy hat was working wonders. Nobody ever expected John Wayne to pull a fast one on them.

“Where to next?” he mused as he strolled down the street. “We’re all going to need new clothes soon. Should I hit up a laundromat, you think?”

A man walking in the opposite direction gave him a wide berth as they passed one another, as people tended to do when you were talking to yourself in public.

Klaus had a lot of experience with that. The only thing different was that he felt a niggle of self-consciousness, because this time, he really _was_ talking to himself.

“Making me look bad from an alternate timeline,” he muttered under his breath. “Classic you, Ben.”

A shop to his right caught his eye, and Klaus paused to examine the display in the window.

CELL PHONES AND SERVICE CONTRACTS

PRICES AS LOW AS $120

…Were those the walkie-talkies he kept seeing? And some of them cost _more_ than a hundred and twenty bucks?

This called for further investigation.

The door made an electronic chiming sound as he wheeled his cart inside. A heavy-set older gent stepped out from around the counter to greet him.

“Hello,” the man said. “Are you looking for anything in particular today, or are you just browsing?”

Klaus rested an elbow on the handle of his cart. “Well, I’m in the market for a ‘cell phone,’—“ He included the air quotes—“but you’re really going to have to sell it to me. Pretend I don’t anything about them.”

The man smiled at him, uncertain. “Of course.”

“I mean it.” Klaus waved a hand. “Like, pretend that I’m a time-traveller who just got here yesterday from 1963, and that I have no idea what a ‘cell phone’ is. Explain how they work from the ground up. Give details, and be specific.”

The man looked from Klaus’s shopping cart, to his cowboy hat, to his face.

“…Sure thing.”

{}{}{}{}{}

There was a very, very old jar of Vaseline in the bathroom medicine cabinet, and Vanya gently dabbed some onto the blister forming on Five’s leg.

It reminded her a little of their childhood. After the rest of them finished training, she had used to play Minuet in G Major—Five’s favorite of the songs she’d known in those days—so that he would be able to find her in the house, and he would come to show off his cuts and scrapes.

 _Doesn’t hurt,_ he’d used to boast, proudly displaying a skinned knee or a black eye. _Ben cried because he broke his finger and Allison cried because Klaus pulled her hair too hard, but I had to get stitches and_ I _didn’t cry._

Then the missions had started, and the injuries got worse. She’d continued playing Minuet in G when they got home. Five had continued to come find her, and had continued to not cry, though she was pretty sure he’d been close to it, a few times.

Vanya looked up at his face from where she was crouched next to him. That little boy was far, far away now, she thought.

“Does it feel okay?” she asked. “Maybe we can get you a painkiller from someplace?”

He shook his head. “I’m fine.” Then, after a pause, “Maybe some gauze. My side is oozing.”

Vanya stood up. “Your side?”

He pulled off his shirt in response, and she drew in a surprised breath.

There was a wound there, sutured up and sore-looking, though probably not infected, to her eyes. But beyond that, he had—scratches, and bruises, and a near-perfect imprint of a boot in the middle of his back, and even what appeared to be a human bite mark by his shoulder.

“You’re a mess,” she marveled.

His lips twitched, something old and familiar sparking in his eyes. “Doesn’t hurt.”

She smiled at him, and wished that someday he would tell her if it did.

There was a low whistle behind them. Five started at the sound, but it was only Diego. Vanya had heard him coming all the way from downstairs.

“Looking rough, bro,” he said, slouched against the doorframe. “What happened to you?”

“Well, there was an Apocalypse,” Five said conversationally. “And then there was almost another one. You were there, actually, you might remember them.”

Diego stretched his arms up to brace against the doorway. “Yeah, I got stabbed,” he said with a disinterested yawn. “Dad did it. Right in the gut.”

“Mmhm. Take an aspirin and see how you feel in the morning.”

“Just, fucking jabbed it right in there.”

“That’s how stabbing works, yes.”

“I almost died.”

“But here you are, telling us the tale. For the thousandth time.”

Vanya cleared her throat. “Are you okay, Diego?” she asked. “I’m probably going to get some stuff for Five if we have any money left when Klaus comes back. Do you need gauze, too? Or antibiotic ointment, something for pain…?”

“I’m good, I guess.” He rapped a few beats against the door with his knuckles. “Haven’t really been thinking about it. Haven’t really looked at it, even.”

“Oh.” Vanya gestured between herself and Five. “We’re done, anyway. You can have the bathroom to get cleaned up.”

Diego shrugged. “Not sure there’s anything _to_ clean up. Because I haven’t looked at it. Like I said.”

“Well… you probably should,” Vanya pointed out.

“Yeah.”

He made no move to do that.

Vanya exchanged a glance with Five.

“Do you want one of us to take a look for you?” she ventured.

“Yeah, I mean, if you want,” Diego agreed, already halfway out of his shirt. “It was pretty gross, last I checked. Just to warn you.”

He kept his gaze trained on the ceiling as Vanya peeled the dressing off his belly.

“You don’t, uh. You don’t have to describe what it looks like to me,” he told her. “I don’t need to know.”

Five sat down on the closed toilet lid. “Your bravery is an inspiration to us all,” he intoned.

{}{}{}{}{}

“—and if you’re looking for something that’s really top-of-the-line, these are the newest phones on the market. You get talk and text, they’re equipped with a camera, and for just a little more per month, you can get internet access.”

The salesman looked down at the sample phone with something like reverence before handing it over, momentarily entranced by the wonders of technology.

“They’re called flip phones.”

Klaus took it and examined it.

If he was understanding this correctly—and he was pretty sure that he was, because he’d made the guy go over it three times—this little thing was a fully-functional telephone that you could carry in your pocket.

You could communicate with anyone, anytime, anywhere. They could reach you while you were out running errands. While you were at a movie theater. While you were sitting on the toilet, even.

It sounded fucking awful, frankly.

Suddenly, the salesman snapped his fingers. “Klaus Hargreeves,” he proclaimed.

Klaus’s head snapped up. “Uh... Cell phone guy says what?”

He laughed. “Oh, sorry—it’s just that I’ve been trying to figure out who it is you look like since you walked in here, and I finally got it.”

He leaned against the counter. “You wouldn’t be old enough to have heard of him, but Klaus Hargreeves was this flower child, hippy-dippy kind of guy who was running a cult out West back in the 60’s. His group was pretty popular, then he got mixed up in the JFK assassination somehow and he disappeared. I don’t remember the whole story, I was a kid at the time—but really, you’re the spitting image.”

Well, fuckeroo.

“My name’s Kathleen,” Klaus said in a panic. “Kathleen… Hard…gummy.”

“Is it?” the salesman asked with open skepticism.

Klaus screwed up his face to look offended. “Yes, and honestly, I’m insulted you would compare me to a ne’er-do-well like this ‘Klaus Hargreeves’ character. You’ve lost yourself a sale, sir.”

He tipped his hat. “Good _day.”_

The salesman smiled at him. “Chief. You came in here with a grocery store shopping cart full of stuff you clearly just robbed from the Valu-Health up the street. Let’s not pretend you were ever going to buy a phone.”

“Oh.” Klaus paused. “Yeah, I… don’t have any money.”

“Figured as much.” The salesman slapped the counter. “Well, you have a great day.”

“You too. Thank you for your time!”

Back out on the street, Klaus fingered the brim of his hat. No cops, no permanent ban, not even any cursing.

This thing was freaking _magic._

{}{}{}{}{}

“Okay!” Allison snapped her fingers and pointed at the grocery pile. “How’s this sound for dinner—rice with canned veggies, and I’ll mix some of the cheese in so it isn’t _totally_ blah.”

“That sounds really good,” said Luther.

Allison smiled at the can of green beans in her hand. It sounded like jail food, but she knew Luther was going to swear it was ambrosia, and not even to be polite.

Once, when they were young, Pogo had brought home salt-water taffy as a treat, and he had happily eaten three of them before realizing they were covered in wax paper.

Luther gathered up their peanut butter collection—Klaus had gotten them four jars, and no bread to put it on—and stowed it in one of the cabinets.

“I didn’t know you could cook,” he commented.

“Ray taught me.”

Allison had her back to him, but she heard his movements halt. Belatedly, she realized it might be cruel to talk to Luther about this.

“His, um. His mother died when he was twelve,” she went on, purely to fill the silence, because she thought it might smother the both of them if she left it unchecked, “and his dad had to work a lot. And he was the oldest of his siblings, so he kind of became Mister Mom.”

She heard Luther lean his weight against the counter.

“He sounds like a really good guy,” he said, without resentment.

“He was.”

Memories floated through her mind of a warm hand guiding hers to chop bell peppers, of the two of them laughing to the point of tears when they’d bitten into a pie she had spent all day making and realized she’d forgotten to add sugar.

Allison directed a private smile at the oven. “He really, really was.”

Luther was a good guy, too, of course. One of the best she’d ever find. But…

‘Shave and a Haircut’ tapped at the door.

“IT’S ME AGAIN,” Klaus yelled. “BUT YOU KNEW THAT, BECAUSE OF THE SECRET KNOCK.”

Allison hurried to let him in. Luther trailed behind her for a few steps, then stopped, like he was unsure if she wanted him to follow. She wasn’t sure, either.

“Look what I found!” Klaus exclaimed, gesturing to the treasure he’d dragged up the front steps.

“A bicycle.” She eyed the seat. “A woman’s bicycle.”

 _“My_ bicycle,” he corrected. “It was a project and a half to get this thing AND a shopping cart back here, let me tell you.”

She hadn’t noticed it at first, but she saw now that the cart was leashed to the belt loop of his pants by a series of plastic bags he’d knotted together.

It was… really something.

“That’s a great idea, Klaus,” she said after a beat of silence. “Like, super smart.”

He blinked, mouth splitting into a pleased, if surprised, smile. “Isn’t it? It’s in my top ten lightbulb moments, for sure.”

“Yes.” She smiled back at him. “Show me how you did it?”

“But of course!”

He hauled the bike back down the steps, and Allison went into the house for a moment as he tried to untangle himself from the plastic bags.

Luther had sat down on the sofa, hands folded in his lap. He looked as though he felt out of place, an uneasy visitor to someone else’s home.

Allison stopped in front of him.

“So, I don’t know what the rest of your day is looking like,” she said brightly, “but if you want to catch a movie before dinner, Klaus is about to ride a stolen bike down the street with a shopping cart tied to his pants.”

Luther took a second to let that sink in. “Should we stop him?”

“Probably, so I actively encouraged him to do it instead.” She reached down and grabbed his wrist, laughing. “Come on.”

A smile flitted across Luther’s face, and he rose to his feet.

Standing there together, at the front door, he fit into the space at her side so comfortably she could almost forget that he’d ever left it.

{}{}{}{}{}

Klaus took a bite of his rice and vegetables. “Oh, wow,” he said. “This is tragic.”

He waved his fork at Allison, who was giving him a dirty look. “Like, thanks for making it and everything, but I think my tastebuds just died of ennui.”

“I like it,” Luther offered from his seat on the floor.

“Yeah, well, you also like science and broccoli,” Klaus dismissed. “Anywho—Diego, do you have any threes?”

Diego fanned out his cards as he bit into a green bean. “Go fish.”

Vanya had found a pack of playing cards in a box at the back of a closet, and they’d settled on Go Fish for their dinnertime entertainment, as it was the only game they all knew the rules to.

In theory, at least.

“It’s the best I could do with what we had. Don’t ask me what we’re eating tomorrow.” Allison studied her cards. “Klaus, any queens?”

“Go fish.”

Wordlessly, Five pulled out two, and offered them to her.

“Uh… Okay, thanks for the donation, but I wasn’t asking you.”

“Why would that matter?”

“Because… that’s how the game works?”

Vanya sat forward in her chair. “I was thinking that tomorrow I might apply for a job,” she said. “So we don’t have to keep stealing stuff.”

“Yeah, I like stealing more for pleasure than necessity,” Klaus agreed. “Too much pressure.”

Diego crossed his ankles on the floor. “Gonna be a lot harder to find work without any ID in 2019 than it was in the 60’s,” he said. His face darkened. “Would’ve asked Al if he needed a new janitor, otherwise.”

Then he jerked his head at Five. “Why the shit are you holding on to a matching pair, anyway?”

Five gave him an exasperated look. “Because it’s not my turn yet.”

“I was thinking of somewhere specific.” Vanya pushed rice around on her plate with something less than enthusiasm. “There was this diner I worked at in my early twenties. They paid under the table, and they were always looking for servers. If it’s still there, they’d probably hire me again.”

Allison smiled over her cards. “I can’t imagine you being a diner waitress. Did you have one of those little uniforms?”

Vanya sighed. “I did, yeah.”

Luther had stood up to get more water, and he leaned over Five to see his hand.

“You have a pair of queens _and_ a pair of nines,” he observed. “Five, have you… ever actually played Go Fish before?”

Five pressed his cards to his chest. “No, but it’s a simple matching game for children.” He gave a derisive snort. “I think I’ve got the gist of it.”

 _“Do_ you, though?” asked Klaus.

“How about we explain the rules, and then we reshuffle and start the game over?” Luther suggested.

Diego speared a carrot and pointed it at him. “I keep telling you, _no,”_ he said. “You have to play the hand you were dealt.”

Luther made a frustrated gesture with his empty glass. “The hand I was dealt has an Uno card mixed in with it! How is that fair?”

“Maybe I should look for a job, too,” said Allison. She popped a glob of cheese into her mouth and looked sidelong at Five while she chewed. “I guess it depends how long we’re going to be here, though. Is it even worth it?”

Five lowered his cards. His face had taken on that razor edge it got when he’d been thinking ten steps ahead of the rest of them, and was now ready to make a move.

“Klaus, give me your three,” he ordered.

Allison’s mouth flattened into a moue of disappointment.

“You don’t have a three,” Luther called over the sound of running water from the kitchen.

“And now neither will Klaus,” said Five, rolling his eyes. “I’m thinking strategically. And don’t tell everybody what my cards are.”

Vanya brushed a hand over Allison’s knee as Klaus parted ways with the three of spades.

“We won’t be here for long,” she promised. “I don’t think we will, anyway. But… maybe it’s good to take a break for a couple days?”

Diego surged up on his knees to snatch the card from between Five’s fingers.

“You don’t get this,” he said, shaking it at him. “Cheaters don’t get cards.”

Five grabbed Diego’s wrist and planted the sole of his foot against his shoulder for leverage. “Being better at the game than you are doesn’t make me a cheater. Give it back.”

_“No.”_

Luther re-entered the room and began edging his way in between them.

“Nobody’s cheating, some people just don’t know the rules,” he soothed as he tried to grab Five’s knee. “So let’s reshuffle—“

“We are NOT reshuffling, play your Uno card like a goddamn man—“

Klaus bonked his head against Allison’s shoulder. “A break might be nice for certain people.”

Five tried to make a lunge for the card. Luther caught him around the waist, pressed him back into his seat, and folded him up like a pretzel.

“I’m talking about me.” Klaus widened his eyes for effect. “I left all my nice shoes back in 1963. This is a trying time.”

Allison cast a lingering look at Five. He tried to kick Luther, then froze with a grimace, like the movement was making something hurt.

“Yeah,” she agreed with a sigh. “Yeah, you’re right. A break. For a few days.”

“There’s no fighting in Go Fish,” Luther said with authority. “We’re going to reshuffle the deck, and—“

As he let Five go, he took half a step backwards. Directly into the coffee table.

They all watched as their cards scattered across the floor.

“Alright!” Klaus pumped a fist. “Fifty-two Pickup! I _love_ this one!”

{}{}{}{}{}

Diego grunted as he shifted in bed.

“My stomach is fucking killing me,” he complained into the dark.

Klaus glanced over from his perch on the windowsill, where he was coloring his toenails with a marker by the light of the moon.

“Was dinner too exciting for you?” he asked. “Just wait until I find a place to steal salt and pepper shakers from. You are going to be hating life, amigo.”

“It’s not that.” Diego grunted again as he scooted up to adjust his pillow. “Where I got stabbed.”

“Oh.” Klaus put his marker down. “Didn’t Vanya go get stuff for that? Where is it?”

He sighed. “The bathroom, but it’s just ointment and gauze.”

She’d asked—multiple times—if he and Five were sure neither of them needed anything for pain, and Five kept saying yes, so Diego had no choice but to say the same.

He was regretting it now. His last dose of medicine had been lovingly administered to him by Lila, who had chucked a bottle of Tylenol at his head and said _‘Take two of these and stop being a bloody idiot.’_

Something panged deep inside of him at the memory. Something that had nothing to do with their father’s knife.

Where was she now? Was she safe, was she warm and well-fed? Was she wondering the same about him?

“Do you want me to rub it?” Klaus asked.

Diego scowled at the ceiling. “Yeah, that’d be great. Because the best thing to do for a stab wound is to poke at it with your grubby hands.”

Klaus’s silhouette stiffened in the window.

“My hands are not grubby.”

“You told us an entire story about the dumpster toaster you found.”

“They’re not grubby _now.”_

“Sure.”

“They’re not! I washed with soap and everything! Here—“ Klaus scrambled off the ledge and shoved a hand into Diego’s face. “Look how clean! SMELL HOW CLEAN MY HANDS—“

There was a knock on the wall they shared with Vanya and Allison’s room.

“Good job,” Diego snapped at Klaus. “Is this going to be a nightly tradition with the two of you?”

“I wasn’t even being loud!”

The knock sounded again, quick but soft, like whoever was on the other side was afraid of making too much noise.

Diego angled his head backwards.

“Think they’re okay over there?” he asked.

Klaus frowned as the knocking came a third time. “Maybe? I hope?”

Diego extended a hand to him in a silent request for help getting up.

He opened their door—shouldering his way in front of Klaus, who could be great backup when the planets were aligned right, but who you never wanted to lead the charge—and immediately froze.

“—heard something up there. You’re sure nobody’s here?”

A woman’s voice. From downstairs. Husky, with an unplaceable accent, and totally unfamiliar.

“Pretty sure,” a man answered. There were footsteps, and the distinctive crunch of the living room rug. “Come on.”

“Oh, _fuck,”_ Klaus breathed in his ear. “Home invaders! And this isn’t even our home!”

Vanya peeked out of the doorway of her and Allison’s room, eyes wide with fear.

Diego pointed down the hall to where Five and Luther would be asleep.

 _‘Get them,_ ’ he mouthed.

She nodded.

The fifth step from the top had a creak to it, so Diego signaled Klaus to wait a moment before following him down. He was the only one of them, he was sure, who’d taken note of that, and he wanted the element of surprise before everybody else came trampling after him like a herd of buffalo.

The beam of a flashlight was swinging around.

“Noor,” the woman said, “the fridge is running. Someone _is_ here.”

The man’s shadowy figure turned away from where he was crouched by the bookcase. “So what if there is?” he asked. “What are they going to do, call the police and say we broke into a house that they broke into first?”

Diego slipped a knife from his belt.

“No,” he announced, taking aim at the woman in the kitchen, “but I _am_ going to do th—“

Five burst onto the scene in a flash of blue and swept her legs.

Diego threw his knife instead at the man’s feet, but his heart wasn’t in it.

He’d had the perfect shot, and the perfect line, and Five just HAD to come blow up his spot, didn’t he?

He was such an _ass._

The man launched himself backwards with a muttered “Shit!” and from the corner of his eye, Diego saw the woman block Five’s punch. Her reflexes were sharp, sharper than he would have expected to find in a pair of crackheads looking to boost a stereo.

The rest of their siblings were there by then—Allison calling “Diego? Diego, it’s too dark, where are you?” and Klaus saying “Careful, careful!” to Vanya as he chased her down the stairs, and Luther lumbering after them, yawning and asking “Whass goin’ on?”

Glass smashed in the kitchen, and either the woman or Five yelped in pain. The man scrambled to his feet, grabbed a chair to use as a shield against Diego’s next knife.

Vanya was floating at the bottom of the stairs and starting to glow. The floor quaked as she got brighter, and something fell off one of the walls, and the teacups were rattling in their cabinets, and Diego hoped to God that she had some kind of plan here because otherwise she was going to—

Five reared back from where he and the woman were grappling on the kitchen floor.

 _“Sunny?”_ he said in disbelief.

The woman stared at him for a moment.

Then she let her head fall back against the tiles, her whole body going slack with relief, or maybe with resignation.

“Number Five,” she sighed.

{}{}{}{}{}

Five regarded Sunny across the kitchen table as the kettle heated up.

On the whole, she looked the same as the last time he’d seen her. Her face was more lined, and her hair had gone a touch grayer, perhaps, but everything that mattered was still there.

Metal briefcase handcuffed to her wrist. Sidearm on her hip. Eyes like black holes, reflecting nothing of what she might have been thinking.

“I thought you would have retired by now,” he said finally.

“I did. A few years back.” She offered him a thin smile. “The Commission is trying to convince everyone who can still hold a gun to come work for them again, on a temporary basis. They’re hard-up for field agents right now.”

She didn’t say _‘Because you guys killed them all,’_ but that much was understood.

“Because you guys killed them all,” her partner piped up helpfully.

Five gave him a cool look across the kitchen. He was sixty, maybe, tall and slender with something foxlike about his face. Five had the distinct impression that if Diego hadn’t been there eyeing him with open mistrust, he’d be rifling through their cabinets just to see what was there.

“Noor, wasn’t it?” he asked. “I seem to remember you being in case management.”

He also remembered the Noor in case management being a woman, but he’d be far from the first Commission employee to be given a new body, if they were, in fact, the same person.

“I was,” he said. “But I was a field agent first, and now I’m a field agent again. Because you guys killed them all.”

“They tried to kill us first,” Luther called from the living room. He sounded sheepish.

The kettle started to whistle, and Allison reached up to take mugs down from the shelf. The coffee Klaus had stolen was instant, and decaf, and there was no cream or sugar, but it was the only thing they had worth offering to visitors.

“So you two used to work together?” she asked, glancing at Five and Sunny over her shoulder. “Were you partners?”

It sounded like small talk. Five knew that it was not. She was digging.

“Not exactly,” Sunny said, when he didn’t answer her. “I was a field trainer. They used to pair me up with new agents, for their first few months on the job.”

Klaus popped into view around Luther.

“Ohhh, so you were our dear brother’s murder teacher!” he exclaimed. “You don’t have plans for the rest of the evening, do you? Because I have just, _so_ many questions.”

“Field trainer,” Five corrected. “Not teacher.”

“Same difference.”

“Big difference.”

At his post against the kitchen counter, Diego stretched as conspicuously as humanly possible.

“I worked for the Commission myself, for a hot minute,” he said. Then, with studied nonchalance, “I was kind of a legend.”

Five saw Vanya, who was sweeping up the pieces of plate smashed across the floor, cringe in secondhand embarrassment. He could relate.

“Yeah,” he agreed, “you really made your mark in the whole two hours you were there.”

“It’s about quality, not quantity,” Diego said loftily.

Noor was watching this exchange like it was his favorite show.

“You know what,” Sunny cut in, addressing Klaus, “now that you mention it, we ought to get going. We have an early morning.”

Five could admit to a curiosity to know what job they were working, but they wouldn’t be allowed to tell him if he asked. He wasn’t part of their world anymore, after all.

It felt… freeing.

“Oh, but there’s coffee!” Allison turned away from the counter, holding up two mugs. “Won’t you stay a while longer?”

Sunny shook her head as she slid out of her seat. “We really can’t, but thank you,” she said. “We were planning to spend the night here—we should get to work on finding a hotel instead.”

Noor pushed himself away from the counter.

“Sweet dreams, Hargreeves family,” he called as he sauntered towards the door.

“Nice meeting you all.” Sunny scanned the room, their faces. “Sorry to disturb you.”

Her gaze came to rest on Five. She offered him another of her thin-lipped smiles.

“Good to see you again, Number Five.”

Once they were gone, Allison turned around, illuminated still by Vanya’s eerie light.

“Well,” she said. “This old house is seeing more action than it has in years, huh?”

Klaus draped himself over the arm of the sofa. _“Big_ week for this house,” he agreed.

Five zapped to the counter and took a sip of the coffee. It was appalling.

“I’m not a big believer in coincidences,” he said, “but that’s all this was. You didn’t hear them talking—they had no idea we were here.”

Vanya leaned the broom against the wall. “Is it safe for us to stay?” she asked. “Now that they do?”

Five shrugged. “Herb has a soft spot for us, and Sunny won’t go out of her way to make trouble. We can’t be here indefinitely, but we’re fine for now.”

Luther shifted next to Klaus. “Are you sure?” he asked hesitantly. “About the, um. The Sunny not making trouble part?”

Five frowned at him. “What are you really asking, Luther?”

“Well…” He rolled his shoulders. “No offense, or anything, but it kind of seems like being a psycho is a prerequisite to working for the Commission.”

“Fucking excuse me?” Diego demanded.

“I said no offense!”

Five took another drink of his horrible instant coffee. Could he trust Sunny? He thought it over.

Returning to civilization from the Apocalypse had not been an easy adjustment. The first time he’d tried to take a shower, he’d sprayed water all over the bathroom by accident, because he’d forgotten how to work a faucet. Any food richer than plain crackers had made him sick to his stomach for months. There was so much light and sound and movement and people, people, _people._

He’d made it through classroom orientation at the Commission by the skin of his teeth. But then, out in the field, he had sort of… shut down.

He remembered lying in his bed in the motel room he and Sunny were sharing for four straight days. He hadn’t slept so much as lost consciousness here and there, beset by a mental fog so thick that even thinking was physically exhausting. He remembered having to psych himself up to make a trip to piss. He remembered longing for the stillness of the end of the world.

And he remembered, too, that the glass of water on his nightstand had been refilled each time he woke up. That there had been food there, simple things, three times a day. He remembered rolling over to watch Sunny watch TV on mute on the other bed, and her not acknowledging him at all, and him being grateful for it, because what he’d needed just then was the chance to adapt to the quiet presence of a living, breathing person so close by.

She had completed the job by herself. And then, on the fifth day, she’d leaned over him with her dark, empty eyes, said, _‘You need to get up now, Number Five,’_ and handed him his first-ever coffee.

“She won’t do anything,” he said. “Sunny is good people.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Luther said doubtfully.

At the other end of the kitchen counter, Diego cleared his throat.

“We should be getting back to bed,” he said, “but first, we need to do a debriefing.”

Vanya tilted her head as she sat down at the table. “Debriefing?”

“It’s standard operating procedure.” Diego pointed at Luther. “You—too slow. Faster response time for the next emergency.”

“I was dead asleep,” Luther complained. “How fast can I be ten seconds after waking up?”

Diego pointed to Vanya. “You—good job raising the alarm, but ease off the throttle if you’re going to use your powers indoors. If you knock this house down with us inside of it, I’ll… be dead, I guess, but I’ll also be mad as shit. I’m not speaking to you in the afterlife.”

Vanya hunched her shoulders. “Yeah, okay. Fair.” 

“You two—“ He pointed at Klaus and Allison—“I don’t even _know_ what you were doing.”

“I told you, it was too dark to see,” argued Allison. “Did you want me to come in swinging blind?”

“Was I _supposed_ to be doing something?” Klaus wondered.

“And you—“ He pointed last at Five—“don’t steal my thunder next time.”

Five raised an eyebrow. “Your thunder.”

“Yeah, my thunder! You stole it, you jerkoff.”

Five dumped the rest of his coffee down the sink. “Enlighten me.”

Diego crossed his arms, miffed. “I was about to stab the shit out of your friend Sunny—“

“We’re not friends, she’s a former colleague—“

“And former teacher!” Klaus chimed in.

_“Field trainer.”_

“—and then you jumped in like a goddamn action hero, and I know that sounds like a compliment but it’s _not,_ you’ve always been such a showoff—“

 _“He’s_ a showoff?” Allison broke in, incredulous. “Remember that time I was doing an interview with Tiger Beat and you randomly walked into the room, did a back flip, and left?”

“I remember that interview,” said Klaus. “I remember you took my diamond choker to wear for it and never gave it back.”

Luther sighed. “Klaus, that was a dog collar, and they were rhinestones. We all told you that.”

“SAME DIFFERENCE!”

“Big difference,” Vanya murmured at the table.

Diego, visibly fuming, raised an arm. “Alright, know what? I propose Team Zero’s first rule—no showboating. Who’s in?”

“Fine by me,” Five muttered as Luther and Vanya raised their hands.

He wasn’t a showoff. He was just the most competent fighter in the group.

Incidentally, he was also the most competent _person_ in the group, but you didn’t hear him bragging about it.

“The ‘ayes’ have it,” Diego announced, sounding satisfied. “I’ll add it to our charter first thing in the morning.”

His brow creased. “Also, I guess I’ll make us a charter.”

“You do that.” Allison yawned. “I’m off to bed. Good night.”

There were other vague murmurings of agreement, and Vanya and Klaus and Luther trooped after her up the stairs. Five rinsed out his coffee mug. Diego examined one of the kitchen knives.

“This needs to be sharpened,” he commented, testing the tip of it against his thumb. “I’ll put it on my to-do list for tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a full day for you,” Five said tersely. “Time for some beauty rest, don’t you think?”

“Sure is.” Diego put the knife back in its block.

“Hey.”

Five glanced over at him.

“When I make our charter, I’ll be sure to use short words.” He grinned. “So that our rules will be easier to follow than the rules of Go Fish.”

He clapped Five’s shoulder, untroubled by the glare he was giving him.

“Night, bro.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the Hargreeves lived in a world where cell phones existed, Diego would 100% wear his clipped to his pants, and nobody could convince him that it did not look badass.
> 
> Also, I just want to clarify where they're at with technology for the purposes of this story: There was an eBay reference in S1, so it seems like they would at least know what the Internet is. But I imagined it being kind of like, very early Internet, where it was hard to navigate and most people didn't have a home computer and it wasn't really part of day-to-day life yet. 
> 
> But now their world has advanced to the point of flip phones, so they're in for a surprise! You can look at a picture on your computer without it taking the whole fuckin afternoon to load! ~ s c i e n c e ~


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vanya communes with herself, Klaus communes with an unusual ghost, and Luther communes with nature.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative chapter summary- In which it looks like nothing is happening, but the author swears it is.

Vanya smoothed her uniform into place and double-checked her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Her blouse was cheap nylon in black and turquoise, with ‘The Tropics Diner’ printed on one side. On the other was a plastic nametag that read ‘Linda,’ as the owner hadn’t had time to get a new one made for her yet. Plain black capris, plain white sneakers. Pink lipstick that felt greasy and foreign on her mouth, but she’d get better tips if she made herself up a little.

She might as well have stepped out of a time capsule from age twenty-two. Except back then she’d been taking this same outfit off for what she’d thought would be the last time, because she’d just gotten a position in an orchestra and her real life was _finally_ going to start.

 _But you have your family this time,_ a voice in the back of her head said. _That’s the most important thing._

Vanya frowned at the mirror.

She’d been hearing that voice off and on for the past two weeks, ever since they’d arrived back in 2019. And she knew acid could do weird stuff to you, like cause flashbacks and such, but… ones this vivid? And this long after taking it?

 _Oh, you’re not crazy,_ the voice promised. _Not at all._

….Well. _That_ didn’t make her feel any better.

Vanya tiptoed downstairs as quietly as she could. She actually liked working the early shift, but she was sure the rest of the household would not appreciate being woken up at the crack of dawn.

Klaus was spread-eagled on the living room floor, reading a yellowed copy of _The Art of War._ All of the books in the house were pretty much exactly what you’d expect a bunch of time-travelling assassins to go for.

“Hey.” She nudged his knee with her foot as she passed by. “How’d it go last night?”

Aside from her, Klaus was the only member of the family to find employment so far. He’d gotten hired just yesterday to do bike deliveries overnight for a takeout place nearby, and he must now be winding down for bed after his first shift.

“Oh, pretty well,” he said, flipping a page. “I got a nice tip from some college kids having a party. And then I threw the owner’s Rolex in the deep fryer by accident, so he took all the money I made, and also I got fired.”

Vanya paused in putting a slice of bread into the toaster.

“Uh… How’d that happen, exactly?”

Klaus turned another page. “Which part?”

“The part where you cooked a watch?”

“Oh.” He waved a hand. “Magic trick gone wrong. Occupational hazard, really, you’d think they’d be insured for these things.”

Vanya blinked up at the ceiling. Klaus didn’t sound concerned about it, and she only had twenty minutes before her bus came, so… whatever.

“Sorry about that,” she said as she set a pot of water to boil. “Now you’ll know for next time, I guess.”

“Yup! Don’t fry the boss’s personal possessions. That’s something they _never_ tell you in workforce re-entry classes.” Klaus rolled over on the rug. “What are you making, by the way?”

“Just toast and a soft-boiled egg,” she told him as she rummaged through the fridge.

Klaus tossed his book aside and got up on his knees. “Vanya, that is a boring start to a boring day,” he lectured. “You should make yourself something good. Like scrambled eggs. With cheese. And salsa, if we still have any.”

Vanya found the egg carton and bumped the refrigerator door closed with her hip. “I’m good with this.”

“Alright,” he sighed. “Resign yourself to a life of mediocrity. But sixty years from now, when you’re lying on your deathbed, surrounded by all your cats, you’ll think _‘Things could have been so different if only I had listened when Klaus told me to make scrambled eggs. With cheese. And salsa, if we still had any.’_ And my ghost will be hovering over you saying _‘I told you so.’”_

Vanya smiled at him over her shoulder. “You could make them.”

From the look he gave her, you’d have thought she just started speaking in tongues.

“I’ll help you get started,” she offered. “Come on.”

Reluctantly, Klaus climbed to his feet and joined her in the kitchen.

“Okay,” she said, adding her own egg to the boiling water. “First, get a saucepan and put it over medium heat.”

Klaus opened one of the drawers and surveyed his options.

“Remind me which one is the saucepan?”

Vanya stooped to pull it out.

“Ohh, that guy!” Klaus exclaimed as she turned the burner on for him. “Got it!”

“Now crack two eggs in a bowl, add a pinch of salt and pepper, and whisk,” she instructed, setting her toast on a plate.

“Oh, I don’t know how to do that,” said Klaus.

“Just take a fork and stir it around fast.”

“No, no, crack an egg.” He took one out of the carton and held it between two fingers, studying it like it was a misfit puzzle piece. “Tricky little bitches.”

Vanya frowned at him. She could almost understand the confusion over the saucepan, but the idea that Klaus had spent thirty two years on earth without ever cracking an egg strained the limits of her credulity.

“You know how,” she said, “you just don’t want to.”

Klaus flopped his wrist and let the egg roll across the counter. “Oh, no! Both of my hands have spontaneously broken, and now I am physically unable to—“

“Klaus,” she interrupted, “it’s fine. I don’t mind making you breakfast.”

Truthfully, she liked doing things for them. She liked changing the dressing on Diego’s stab wound every day, and she liked helping Allison braid her hair before bed at night, and the afternoon she’d found a coffee maker at a sidewalk sale, Five had been so pleased he’d looked like he might hug her for a second.

She couldn’t undo causing two Apocalypses. But she could work this stupid job at this shitty diner to support them, and she could certainly scramble an egg.

Vanya tipped her head at the pot of boiling water. “Just peel the shell off mine, so I can eat it before the bus comes?”

Klaus smiled. “Deal!”

Vanya hummed a sonata under her breath as she stirred cheese into Klaus’s breakfast and Klaus shelled hers into the garbage. On her way home tonight, she decided, she’d stop and buy them mint chocolate chip ice cream as a surprise. Allison was so careful about how they budgeted their money, but one small treat wasn’t going to break them.

Besides. Vanya had never had anybody to spoil before.

“Aw, fuck!”

She turned around. Klaus was staring down into the trashcan.

“Uh…” He smiled at her nervously and held out his empty hands. “My butterfingers strike again!”

“Oh.”

She looked at the clock. Just under ten minutes for the bus.

 _There’s being sorry, and then there’s being a doormat,_ the voice pointed out.

“Well, I’m eating this, then,” she said, pointing the spatula at the sizzling pan of eggs and cheese and salsa, “and I guess you’re making your own after all.”

“Is there still salsa?”

“This was the end of it. Sorry.”

Klaus gave her a sulky look through his lashes. “This is going to be reflected in your tip, Linda.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Klaus played absent-mindedly with his dog tags, staring up at the fan on the ceiling.

He’d spent the last two weeks dreaming of the day when he’d have the bed to himself, and now that it was here, he wished Diego would come back after his shower and decide to sleep in for a few more hours. It was so big and empty for just one person.

There was a soft knock at the door.

“Klaus?” Allison asked in a low voice. “Are you asleep?”

He rolled over. “Yes, but I’m very good at multi-tasking,” he called. “What’s up?”

“I’m heading to the grocery store. Is there anything you need while I’m out?”

“A dewy young gymnast to practice the splits on my face.” He stroked his beard in thought. “And if they’re out of those, my second choice is a Slim Jim.”

On the other side of the door, Allison snorted.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Check the candy aisle for the gymnast,” he advised. “That’s probably where they keep them.”

Her retreating footsteps mingled with her laughter, and Klaus flopped over on the bed, satisfied.

He was glad his comedic prowess hadn’t lost its edge, because he hadn’t been in much of a laughing mood himself, lately. Every time he was alone long enough to hear his own thoughts, his mind kept turning down streets he did not want to explore.

Whatever had become of Dave in this timeline, and how he was too much of a coward to look him up and find out. What would happen if Five took them sideways, as he put it, and split them all up again by mistake. What would happen if Five took them back to their old lives somehow, and nobody had a reason to hang around with him anymore. Ben. Just, full stop— _Ben._

Hearing their father call him Number One had been like having a dick stuck in his ear. It didn’t fit, and the longer he thought about it, the weirder and more upsetting it got.

Ben was the leader. Ben, who had had a higher body count than most serial killers, yet still managed to be traumatized by the ending of _Old Yeller_. Ben, who had once told him in all seriousness that he should stop ‘doing marijuana.’ _Ben,_ who had always been the quintessential kid brother, who needed somebody to look out for him, and to be gentle with him, and to show him the giddy thrill of breaking a rule because it would never occur to him to try it on his own.

How trapped and miserable he must be, Klaus thought.

“What kind of meat is even in Slim Jims?” an unseen person wondered.

Klaus sat bolt upright in the bed. “What the fuck?”

“Oh, shit, sorry!” the stranger said. “I didn’t think you could hear me.”

Klaus tossed the blankets aside. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I wish I couldn’t,” he said. “You ghosts get chatty at the _worst_ times.”

“You can talk to ghosts,” the ghost, to whom he was talking, said in amazement. He must have been a regular Rhodes Scholar in life, this one.

“That I can.” Klaus leaned over the edge of the bed to peek underneath it. Where was this guy hiding? “Was there anything important you wanted to discuss, or…?”

“You know, I had an ex-girlfriend who wouldn’t stay over at my place because she thought it was haunted,” the ghost was musing out loud. “I thought she was being paranoid, but maybe she was on to something.”

“The supernatural does put a strain on relationships,” Klaus agreed. He scanned the walls. “Are you in the closet?”

“Nah, it didn’t work out between us for a lot of reasons, but that wasn’t one of them,” said the ghost. “Do you not like being able to talk to dead people, then?”

Well, there was a loaded question. Honestly, Klaus had stopped thinking about it in those terms quite a while ago—it was just a fact of his life, like loving pineapple even though he thought he might be lowkey allergic to it, or hating how thongs rode up his ass despite knowing he looked good in them.

“It’s a mixed bag,” he decided. “I’d like it better if lost souls didn’t strike up conversations with me while I’m trying to sleep, but that’s my cross to bear.”

“Yeah, I bet that gets annoying as shit,” the ghost agreed. Then, after a pause, “What if you could have a different power? Would you take it?”

“Oh, I’ve thought about this extensively, and my ideal superpower would be the ability to fly,” said Klaus. “Call me boring, but you can’t go wrong with a classic.”

“No, I meant—Your brothers and sisters all have powers, too, right? What if you could have one of theirs, instead? Like, what if you could steal it from them?”

Klaus folded his legs up on the bed. “Ohoho, have we been living with a ghostly voyeur?” he asked. “Tell me, who keeps dropping their snotty tissues right next to the trashcan?”

“I wasn’t trying to snoop,” the ghost said apologetically. “But you guys are hard to look away from.”

Just then, there was a burst of startled, angry voices down the hall, followed by the slam of a door.

“It’s a shared bathroom!” Luther complained off in the distance. “Lock it if you don’t want people to walk in!”

Klaus settled back into the bed with a sigh. “And there’s my cue to pretend to be asleep. A fond adieu to you, partner.”

“But you didn’t answer my question,” the ghost pressed. “If you could steal someone else’s powers, would you?”

Klaus flapped an annoyed hand at nothing. “Fuck no. If growing up in a family of superhumans taught me anything, it’s that they all have downsides. And this is a super weird icebreaker, by the way. Ask what my favorite color is next time.”

The ghost made a humming sound. Heavy footsteps were treading up the hall, and for a second, Klaus had the peculiar sensation that they were making his skull vibrate.

“I don’t think you have a favorite color.”

Klaus opened an eye as a knock came at the door.

“Klaus?” Luther called.

He pushed his hand through his hair. “Uh… yeah?”

“Where are Diego’s pants?” Luther turned the knob and poked his head in. “He forgot to take his clothes into the bathroom with him and—OH MY GOD, why are _you_ naked?!”

Klaus shrugged as Luther swiveled away from him.

“My room, my rules,” he explained.

The back of Luther’s neck was flaming pink. “Why did you tell me to come in, then?” he asked in a strangled voice.

Klaus swung himself upright to grab Diego’s clothes off the floor. “Well, if you want to get technical about it, I didn’t,” he said. “You called my name, and I said ‘Yeah.’ That’s not exactly an invitation.”

He tossed a shirt over Luther’s head. “I don’t see what the big deal is, anyway. Remember when we used to take baths together? Those were the days.”

“We were little kids,” said Luther. “There is no way in the world I’d take a bath with you now.”

He’d probably hop right in if Allison was the one asking, but Klaus refrained from pointing that out. It seemed Luther’s morning was off to a rough enough start.

“Your loss, bro-friend!” Klaus reached over to loop Diego’s pants around Luther’s neck like a scarf. “I always had the _best_ bathtime games. Me and Ben recaptured the lost city of Atlantis from shark people once, you know. It was a whole epic.”

“That’s… actually kind of adorable, but could we talk about it some other time?” Luther asked. “Like when you’re dressed, maybe?”

He started to unwrap Diego’s pants from his neck, but Klaus pulled the legs tighter around him, like reins on a dog sled.

“It started off with us getting shipwrecked,” he went on with a nostalgic sigh, “and at first we were going to rebuild civilization, but neither of us knew where babies came from yet, so we decided to find a magic gem to get us home instead. And then…”

{}{}{}{}{}

Luther took a long sip of his coffee, gazing out the front window at their dilapidated fence.

“The parakeet is back.”

On the sofa, Diego turned a page in the newspaper. “It never fucking leaves,” he said absently. “Stop feeding it.”

Their second morning in the house, Luther had woken up to find a sky-blue parakeet perched on the windowsill outside the kitchen. At first, he’d hoped it would find its own way home, and then he’d started keeping his eyes peeled for any missing pet signs up around the neighborhood—but none had appeared, and the thing showed up every day like clockwork.

“I haven’t been feeding it.” He took another sip of coffee. “What do they even eat?”

“I dunno. Worms.” Diego held up the paper. “There’s a job listing for a hairdresser in here. Where’s Allison at?”

“Grocery shopping. But she said she couldn’t work at a salon again, anyway. All the styles and products she knows are too old-fashioned. We still have blueberries.”

Diego shot him a look of annoyance. “Right. Who needs a job when you have fruit?”

“No, for the bird,” said Luther, gesturing towards the window. “Maybe it’ll eat a blueberry.”

He wondered if that was why it kept coming back—it was waiting for somebody to come outside and feed it.

It probably had no idea how to take care of itself. Things raised in captivity were like that.

The parakeet watched him with suspicion gleaming in its beady eyes as he approached it.

“Hey.” He bent slowly and tossed a blueberry over by the fence. “Are you hungry?”

With one last look at him, the bird hopped down. It pecked at the fruit a few times, as though getting a sample before going for the entrée, then picked it up in its beak.

Luther looked over his shoulder to where Diego was standing on the front steps.

“It’s eating it,” he stage whispered.

“Yeah. I have eyes, thanks.”

The parakeet hopped in Luther’s direction once, then twice, then, to his astonishment, took flight and came to perch on his shoulder.

He stared into its tiny bird face, inches from his own.

“Now it’s _on_ me,” he whispered to Diego.

“Eyes. Still have them,” Diego replied, though his voice, too, was hushed in amazement.

Luther wasn’t sure he’d ever been this close to a bird before. Its feathers looked fluffier than he would have thought they’d be, with an almost iridescent sheen to them. There was something impossibly graceful about the curve of its beak, the lines of its tail—a miniature sculpture, come to life.

“It’s beautiful,” he marveled. “What should I do?”

“Keep really still,” said Diego.

“I want to pet it.”

“What if it bites you?”

Luther turned carefully to look at him. “Do birds have teeth?”

Diego shrugged. “I don’t fucking know.”

“Me neither.”

He looked back to the parakeet. It cocked its head at him.

“I’m just going to try to pet it anyway.”

It made a soft tweeting sound as he touched a finger to its head, but didn’t move. He stroked slow and gentle down its back. Its feathers were every bit as fluffy as they looked, like a little piece of a cloud that had fallen down and come to rest on him.

“Hi,” he murmured to it. “Hi, buddy.”

Weeds crunched as Diego came up behind him.

“I’m going to pet it, too,” he said. “Don’t move.”

He extended a hand with the same caution Luther had. The parakeet lurched at him with an awful screech, beak open, and when he jerked away, it spread its wings and glided up to sit on a telephone wire.

“Well, fuck you, too,” Diego said, offended.

“Maybe you should have given it a blueberry first,” said Luther.

Diego made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “Whatever. Good luck catching that thing to whoever owns it. Little asshole.”

Luther smiled up at it. He hoped no one did catch it—some creatures just weren’t meant to be caged.

Diego kicked through the weeds towards the sidewalk.

“I’m gonna go scout out the neighborhood and see if there’s anybody hiring,” he said. “You coming?”

Luther had real doubts they’d even be here long enough to collect their first paycheck. Five was upstairs working on a way home even as they spoke. But if Diego found work and he didn’t so much as look for it, it was going to get thrown in his face in every disagreement they had from now until the end of time.

“Sure,” he said. “Where are we going today?”

“We’ll cover more ground if we split up.” Diego crossed his arms as he thought. “Okay. You go south and move in a westerly direction, I’ll head north and make my way east. Rendezvous back here at noon for lunch.”

“Uh… which way is south from here?”

Diego huffed. “Go up the street, turn right at the crosswalk.”

“Oh.” He shrugged, feeling slightly defensive. “You could’ve just said that.”

“I did.”

He gave Diego a look of exasperation. Diego lifted his chin in challenge.

Luther sighed and turned to trudge up the street. “See you at noon.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Allison hurried into the house with her shopping bags, then stopped short when Five zapped directly in front of her inches past the door.

“Oh!” she said, a little out of breath.

His shoulders, tensed like he was on the attack, eased. “Oh,” he said back.

Then, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t, “I was just getting a glass of water.”

“Yeah, okay.” She arranged the bags on the floor. “Is anybody else home?”

“Klaus is sleeping. I don’t know where Luther and Diego went.”

She offered him a hopeful smile. “Well, can _you_ spare a few minutes, then? Somebody’s throwing away an outdoor table and chairs a few blocks up—I wanted to go grab them for us.”

Five frowned at her. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugged as she tossed the sandwich bag she’d been using as a wallet onto the bookcase. “I just thought it would be nice to be able to sit out back.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to add _‘Especially if we’re going to be here for the summer,’_ but she didn’t. She’d spent enough years of her life talking out the side of her mouth. This was the time to be direct.

Five shoved his hands in his pockets. “Lead the way,” he said, not sounding entirely pleased.

It was a cool, clear day, nice for walking so long as you had the right clothes, which Five didn’t. The only spare outfit he had so far was a pair of jeans and a T-shirt Klaus had swiped from someplace for him. He wore his old Academy jacket over top of it for warmth, and the ensemble made him look like a tiny businessman on casual Friday. With bowling shoes, for some reason.

Allison knew what an odd pair they must look like, but she’d been waiting for a chance to get him alone.

She had let him have his few days’ break, like Vanya and Klaus had suggested. It had taken every ounce of self-restraint she had to not pester him for updates like a child asking _‘Are we there yet?’_ on a long car ride, but she’d been patient, and now, she needed answers.

“This is a nice neighborhood,” she commented as they passed by a small dog park. “Everything’s in walking distance. Lots of kids.”

“Mm.”

“We’re lucky you remembered the Commission house was here,” she went on. “We’re lucky to have you in general, really.”

She smiled at him. “Saying thank you doesn’t feel like enough, but… Thank you.”

Five was giving her a funny look, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of this turn of events.

After a few seconds, he averted his gaze. “Sure,” he said curtly.

“But, Five,” she continued, keeping her voice mild. “How long are we going to be here?”

He shrugged, eyes forward. “Until I get the numbers right.”

“That’s not really an answer,” she said gently. “I’ve had enough of leaving people behind, Five. I need to know if I should get comfortable here.”

“Right.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, his pace slowing almost to a halt. Then, with a sudden burst of energy, he began walking fast.

“I need to come up with a new equation,” he said, gesticulating with both hands. “One that will allow me to keep jumping us through different versions of 2019 by plugging in new variables, until we find a timeline that we can all live with. That much I know.”

“Okay,” she said, trotting to keep up. “And that’s… hard?”

“Yes and no.”

He came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the sidewalk, and she almost stepped on the back of his shoe.

“The equation practically writes itself. It’s figuring out which variables are safe to change that’s hard.”

He turned to her, his face pinched. “I can’t see across timelines. I don’t know how this April 2019 differs from the next one. And I don’t know what would happen if I set us on a course for a timeline that doesn’t exist—we might create it, just by dint of trying to jump there, or we might end up somewhere else entirely, or it might be like diving into concrete. There’s no telling.”

Allison nodded slowly. “This is a lot different from the time-traveling you’ve done before, isn’t it?”

He pursed his lips. “Think of it like this—up until now, we’ve been moving backwards and forwards down a highway. Now we’re climbing over the guardrails, without being able to see what’s at the bottom.”

Oh, God. Him and his metaphors. He was sounding more like Dad by the day.

“What if we sat down and compared this 2019 to the one we left, and then we made a list of ways it’s different or the same?” she asked, her mind spinning. “Would that help? As a starting point?”

Five put his hands in his pockets. “Maybe. No harm in trying.”

Allison cocked her head and studied him. If that was really a viable solution, he would have thought of it already. And if he _hadn’t_ thought of it already, she’d be getting a much huffier response for having come up with a good idea before he did.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said.

“No.” Without warning he spun on his heel and resumed walking. “Come on. Show me where the stuff you wanted for the house is so we can get home.”

With an exasperated puff, Allison jogged a few paces to catch up with him.

 _“Five,”_ she said, “listen. You’re not single-handedly trying to save the world here, alright? We’re all on the same team. But nobody can help you if you don’t…”

She made a helpless hand gesture as she grasped for the right word. “If you don’t _communicate_ with us. Like, actually share all of the information you have. Not just pieces of it.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder. “When have I ever done that?”

“Are you kidding?” she asked, incredulous. “Seriously— _are_ you? I legitimately can’t tell with you sometimes.”

The way his eyes narrowed told her that no, he had not been, he believed that he had been forthcoming and transparent throughout the entire Apocalypse saga. God help them all.

“Alright,” he said brusquely, “if you want the truth, here it is. At some point, we’re going to have to accept that there’s a certain level of risk inherent in jumping between timelines.”

“Consider it accepted.”

“By you.” He looked at her over his shoulder again, something like wariness in his gaze. “But certain other people might prefer to stay here, where we’re safe, and there’s no Apocalypse looming.”

Allison’s heart skipped a beat, then started thrumming in her chest. “Certain other people meaning you?”

“I want to meet your daughter, Allison,” he told her firmly. “But I can’t force anyone else to come against their will.”

They had stopped walking again. She wasn’t sure when that had happened.

“Right,” she said, once she’d found her voice again, whisper-soft as it was at the moment. She licked her lips. “Well, if… if that’s their choice. But mine is to go wherever Claire is.”

It was her _only_ choice. Her daughter needed her mother, and the mother in her needed her daughter. But a future without the whole family was a grim prospect, all the same.

“And I’ll be with you,” Five told her. His tone was business-like, but there was a note of sincerity to it. “I’ll get you back to her. You have my word.”

She offered him a watery smile. “She’ll be so excited to find out her Uncle Five is one of the big kids.”

Five’s lips thinned.

“Sorry,” she hastened to add, “I’m not even teasing you, I swear, it’s just—she’s four. She won’t understand time-travel, or that you’re an adult. All she’ll care about is showing you her light-up shoes. She thinks that’s what teenagers wear.”

“I’m not getting shoes that light up,” Five informed her in clipped tones.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and turned to continue up the street. “But I suppose that every tea party could use a sophisticated older man.”

Allison followed him. It was a nice thought, her and Five and Claire.

She focused on the mental image of the three of them together, and didn’t let her mind stray to who might be missing from it.

{}{}{}{}{}

The sky was turning a gray-purple color as Diego sat on the front steps, one of those early spring evenings that still had a bite of winter behind it. He brushed away the wood shavings collecting on his knee, and the wind blew them into the jungle of dead weeds.

He would be the first to admit that most of what he’d been told in the mental asylum had gone in one ear and out the other. But the rationale behind art therapy had stuck.

The goal was to give the patients a creative outlet, one of the doctors had explained. Something enjoyable to do. A productive, harmless way to process feelings, and channel stress, and maybe to make something they could be proud of while they were at it.

He was doing a fucking perfect job of processing his feelings all on his own. But he was maybe a _little_ bit stressed, what with the ‘castaways in time’ situation. And the shared bedroom, and having no money. And thinking about Dad’s smug ass running his brainwashing program on Fake Ben across town and not knowing where or when they were going next and worrying about Lila and how she’d find them again and if she even wanted to and—

Well. Long story short, he’d found a block of wood supporting a short table leg, and he was trying his hand at carving it.

Diego dragged the edge of his knife slowly over the grain. He’d started out thinking he’d carve the likeness of the parakeet, but that was maybe too ambitious for a first attempt, and that bird sucked ass anyway. So now he was making, like… a spoon or something?

The knife caught against an irregularity in the wood, and it splintered up the side. Diego glared at it.

Arts and crafts were fucking _impossible._

“Hey,” a voice called, and he looked to see Vanya passing through the gate.

There was one source of stress taken care of, at least.

“Hey,” he said as she settled down next to him. “Your bus running late? We thought you’d be home almost two hours ago.”

“Sorry.” She held out a plastic bag with an apologetic smile. “I stopped and got ice cream.”

He pulled on the side to look into it. Mint chocolate chip. That had been the only flavor their father had let them have as kids, like being green made it healthy. It was still his favorite, though.

“From where?” he asked. “Planet Neptune?”

Vanya put the bag down. “I also stopped at a music store,” she admitted. “To, um. Play one of their violins for a while.”

There was a faraway look in her eyes. “I lost track of time, I guess.”

Oh. She… must miss that, huh? Somehow, it had never occurred to Diego before that Vanya actually _liked_ playing music—he’d always thought of it as just her thing that she did. The rest of them had used to practice incapacitating a person twice their size, she had used to practice Bach. Music was the mission their father had set for her, and the violin her weapon of choice.

“You should buy one,” he said.

Vanya shook her head. “Oh, no. A decent violin costs kind of a lot. We don’t have that kind of money.”

He knew she didn’t mean anything more than what she’d said, but Diego felt his mood sour at the words.

“It’s _your_ money, though.” He made another rough scrape against the wooden block with his knife. “Do what you want with it.”

“No, no, it’s for everybody,” she insisted. “We all need to eat, right?”

That was true, but it shouldn’t fall to her and her alone to feed them. Diego hadn’t counted on anybody for that since he’d left their father’s house.

Just one more thing that was out of his control now.

Vanya shifted next to him. “What are you making?” she asked with a gesture to the wood.

He shrugged one shoulder. “No fucking idea. I just found this, and… I don’t know. It’s stupid.”

“It’s cool.” Her gaze slid up to meet his. “It’s nice doing stuff like that sometimes. Creating things.”

Diego looked back at her for a long moment. Yeah. It was nice. Out of everyone in the family, he guessed, she’d be in the best position to know.

“I think it’s going to be a spoon,” he confided. He showed her the misshapen wood. “A really fucked up spoon.”

Vanya studied it. “I can see it,” she said. “It’s definitely got spoon potential.”

“Thanks.” He paused. “You should still buy a violin. Maybe you can save up for it instead of giving all your tips to Allison.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Her mouth screwed up wryly at the corner. “We can probably cut back on some of our luxury spending.”

“Tell everybody to start wearing their clothes into the shower,” he suggested. “No more trips to the laundromat.”

“Institute daily toilet paper rations.” She wrapped her arms around her knees. “Single-ply isn’t free.”

“Make it a rule that we need unanimous agreement on every single purchase.”

Vanya laughed. “We’d never buy anything ever again.”

“Yeah, I know.” He grinned at her. “But think of how much money we’d save.”

Vanya laughed again. It was such a light, careless sound, one Diego would never have thought the sad shell of a girl he’d grown up with was capable of.

She seemed, some days, like a brand new person he was meeting for the first time.

He bumped his shoulder into hers. “We’re so fucking broke.”

“I know.”

“I’m looking for work. I’m not sure if I’ll find any.”

“I know that, too. Don’t worry about it so much. This isn’t forever.”

“Yeah.” He turned the maybe-spoon over in his hands. “You could ride the bike to the diner, to save bus fare. Klaus got fired. He won’t be needing it.”

“Oh.” She tucked her hair behind her ear, suddenly self-conscious. “I couldn’t, actually. I can’t ride a bike.”

Diego twisted around to look at her. “What? Like, you don’t know how?”

She shook her head. “I never learned.”

“Jesus.” Diego pushed himself to his feet and grabbed the bag of ice cream. “Well, today you’re learning. Let’s go.”

“I’m cool with the bus,” she said. “And I’m probably just going to fall off a bike a lot, so.”

“But you want a violin, don’t you?” he demanded. “You have to suffer for your art, Linda, come on.”

He reached a hand down to her.

She took it.

{}{}{}{}{}

Five chewed the end of his pencil as he stared down at the paper in his lap.

If he swapped a decimal place to make this a tenth instead of a hundredth, there would be a much wider range in the exact date they might land in. But did they want that? They were time-traveling blind anyhow, so in theory it might be to their advantage if—

“Five?” Luther’s voice asked from the other side of the bedroom door. “Can I come in?”

He sighed through his nose. “If you must.”

The knob turned. “You’re wearing clothes, right?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Luther stepped inside.

“I brought you dinner,” he said, holding up a plate. “Allison made lasagna. It’s got spinach in it.”

Five craned his neck over his papers. “Just leave it on the dresser,” he said vaguely. “I’ll get to it later.”

After a second, he added, “Thanks.”

“Did you eat lunch today?” Luther set the plate down and began gathering the coffee mugs that had accumulated on the nightstand. “Or breakfast?”

Five’s mind flitted to the conversation he’d had with Allison earlier. “I was going to, but I got distracted.”

As though to emphasize his point, Klaus’s voice shrieked “AYYYY, MACARENA!” from downstairs.

“You need to eat,” Luther chided gently. “If you keep drinking coffee on an empty stomach, you’ll get an ulcer.”

“Klaus, I’m telling you, that’s the Cha Cha Slide,” Allison said from off in the distance. “You’re getting the dances mixed up.”

Five closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. With each passing day, he was more sure that he had an ulcer already.

“It smells funny in here again,” Luther complained, wrinkling his nose. He crossed to the windows and opened one a crack, balancing the coffee cups in a stack against his chest. “I don’t know how that doesn’t bother you.”

Five settled back against the pillows he’d propped up at the head of the bed. “I have a talent for ignoring small nuisances,” he said pointedly. “Although I have my limits.”

Luther, who had never taken a hint in his life, began opening the other window. “I was in Klaus and Diego’s room earlier,” he said, “and _theirs_ doesn’t smell funny. What are we doing wrong?”

“Alright, now pedal,” Diego’s voice floated in from outside. “Keep pedaling! You’ve got—“

There was a yelp that sounded like Vanya.

“Jesus. You really have it out for that pole, huh?”

“I told you I’m not good at sports,” she said mournfully.

Luther turned to him with a frown. “Are we just gross?” he wondered. “Are we grosser than Klaus and Diego?”

Of course they weren’t. It went without saying—Klaus had once drunk out of the toilet in exchange for a pudding cup, and Diego was in a losing, lifelong battle with foot stink.

Five narrowed his eyes. “What are you implying, Luther?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Just… There’s mold in this cup.”

“Forgive me if I haven’t been staying on top of the housekeeping as I re-invent time travel,” Five snapped. “It’s hard enough to work around all of you as it is.”

Luther blinked. “What do you mean?” he asked, sounding wounded. “We haven’t been bothering you.”

There was a laugh somewhere downstairs. “What is _that_ supposed to be?”

“The Cha Cha Slide!” Klaus said defensively.

“It looks like you started the Hokey Pokey and then you had a seizure. What are you _doing?”_

“Go left!” Diego yelled outside. “Go left! No, Vanya, _my_ left, you’re—AGAIN WITH THE POLE.”

“Can we stop now?” she pleaded.

 _“No._ You’re going to learn to ride this bike or die trying.”

“This is the only time I’ve even talked to you today,” Luther was saying. He sat down on the foot of the bed, and all of Five’s pencils rolled away when the mattress dipped. “Me and Diego were looking for work again, by the way. Neither of us found anything, but I gave the parakeet a blueberry, and then—“

Five let out a breath as Luther prattled about birds, and Diego lectured Vanya about hand-eye coordination, and Klaus and Allison started singing the Hokey Pokey in duet.

They were all so fucking annoying. It was wonderful, and if the six of them were to go their separate ways through time, he didn’t know how he could bear it.

He tossed his papers aside.

“Luther,” he interrupted, “I’m going to go downstairs to eat.”

“Oh.” Luther smiled at him, a bit thrown off, but pleased. “Okay. The rest of us had dinner in the backyard at the table you and Allison found. It was nice.”

“Alright.” He rose from the bed and stretched. “But stop feeding that parakeet. It’s obnoxious.”

Luther gave him a look. “You’re not still mad it called you an asshole, are you?”

Five bristled. “The _one time_ the stupid thing decides to talk—“

“It just repeats things it hears, Five, it doesn’t know what the words mean.” His face turned contemplative. “Maybe we should stop swearing in front of it.”

“I’m going to start swearing _at_ it,” Five muttered as he slipped into the hallway.

Ceramic clinked as Luther got up with his armful of mugs. “Vanya got ice cream, too. She tried to hide some in a bowl in the back of the freezer for you, but we all saw her put it there. So if you want it, you should probably eat it before somebody else—“

Five had jumped to the refrigerator before he could even finish his sentence.

It might have been rude, but you couldn’t sleep on snacks around here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If everyone in the family had to get a pet, I bet Luther would get a bird. They're basically model planes you can share a snack with. Five would get a dog, obviously, and Klaus could have a pet rock because it wouldn't be a big deal if he forgot to feed it.


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vanya makes a friend, Luther and Allison spend some quality time, and Diego goes on a mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friendly reminder that Luther and Allison are still not going to get together! Their day of reckoning is almost upon us.

It was an overcast Sunday morning, the kind best spent curled up in bed with a book and something hot to drink.

A comfortable inertia had settled over the house. Klaus sat sleepy-eyed at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal as Luther dried the dishes. Five was spread out across the loveseat, absorbed in equations. Diego was fiddling with a knife and a block of wood that still looked nothing like a spoon, and Vanya was perched on the stairs, replacing the laces in her shoes.

The only sounds were the soft background noises of a lived-in home, the clinking of a spoon, the rustle of paper. The scent of cinnamon oatmeal lingered heavy and comforting in the air.

It was, in a word, peaceful.

“Am I the _only_ person refilling the ice cube trays?” Allison turned away from the freezer, holding an empty one out for their scrutiny. “Guys, come on _._ It takes two seconds.”

Klaus blinked at her froggishly. “You know I can’t cook.”

“I don’t ever use any,” Luther said, apparently eager to establish that he was not the ice-chomping degenerate who had failed to replenish their supply. “It’s too cold—it bothers my teeth.”

“Try room temperature ice, then,” Five suggested from the living room.

Allison tossed the empty tray back into the freezer and closed the door.

“You know what, since we’re all here anyway, let’s have a family meeting,” she decided. “There are some other things we should talk about.”

Five made a face at his paperwork and Vanya threw a surreptitious glance at the door as Allison came to stand in the center of the living room.

“Alright,” she said, “let’s start with the easy stuff. First, can we all promise to be more careful about leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor?”

From his post at the kitchen sink, Luther threw an accusatory look at Diego.

 _‘Shut up,’_ Diego mouthed back.

“—and if you finish the creamer or the juice or whatever else, don’t put the empty carton back in the fridge.” Allison gazed around at them all with naked disappointment. “We’re better than that, you guys.”

 _‘Pick up your towels,’_ Luther mouthed, pantomiming lifting one off the floor. Diego rejoined with his own pantomime of what Luther should do, which was something deeply personal, and which would not in any way help to keep the house clean.

“Diego,” Allison said sharply, “are you listening to me?”

“Huh?” He looked up at her. “Oh, yeah. Sure.”

She crossed her arms. “What did I just say?”

“Uh…”

At the kitchen table, Klaus laughed croakily. “Room temperature ice!” he hooted. “Classic.”

Vanya shot him a look of concern through the railing on the stairs. Allison sighed deeply.

“Okay,” she said, sounding like she regretted ever getting out of bed that morning, “the next thing I wanted to talk about is clothing. We finally saved up enough to go buy some things—thank you, Vanya—“ Vanya brushed her appreciation aside with a modest wave of her shoe, “—so as long as we stick to thrift stores, I think we can all get a few new outfits.”

“How much do we get?” Klaus asked, wide awake all of a sudden.

Allison took a breath as though to brace herself. “You guys each get thirty dollars, and then there’s fifty for me and Vanya.”

“What? No. Unfair! Why?” Klaus demanded.

“That’s some bullshit.” Diego shook his knife at her. “We’re all just as tired of wearing the same stuff over and over as you two are—“

“This is sexism,” Klaus declared in horror. “You can’t treat me like a second-class citizen because of my dickey-doo.”

“I only have one pair of pants, and they have a hole in the crotch now,” Luther chimed in apologetically. “So soon I won’t have any pairs of pants. Just something to take into consideration, maybe.”

“My only spare shirt,” said Five, his voice coated in ice, “is yellow.”

Allison squared her shoulders. “I understand,” she said in placating tones, “but the thing is, decent bras aren’t cheap. And 60’s bras aren’t decent.”

Luther flushed red, then turned back around to resume drying the dishes with sudden gusto.

“What’s wrong with them?” Five demanded. “Every other woman in the 60’s seemed to be getting along just fine.”

“Well…”

Allison and Vanya exchanged a long look. Then Allison waved her arm in Five’s direction in a clear invitation for somebody else to handle him, because she could not, and did not care to try.

Vanya bit her lip. “They’re uncomfortable,” she said. “And pointy. And… and the way they’re built kind of makes your… you know, your _stuff,_ go…”

She made an awkward juggling motion at her chest, then gave up and scrubbed both hands over her face.

“They’re just bad, okay?”

Diego was toying with his knife, deep in thought. “How much could they really cost?” he asked with an air of suspicion. “Five bucks?”

“If I had boobs,” said Klaus, “I wouldn’t wear a bra at all. I wouldn’t even wear a shirt.”

 _“Ten_ bucks?”

“I’m not justifying my underwear choices to either of you,” Allison said politely.

“Can we please talk about anything else?” Luther begged.

Diego rose to his feet. “The Team Zero charter calls for disagreements to be settled by a vote, and you all signed it, so let’s go,” he said. “All in favor of Allison and Vanya getting extra clothes money, raise your hand.”

Allison’s shot right up, then Vanya’s, and then, to the surprise of no one, Luther’s, albeit with less enthusiasm.

Five gave Allison a calculating look. “I’ll vote for your bra fund if you take my turn cleaning the bathroom.”

“Done.”

“No bribes!” Klaus exclaimed in dismay. “You can’t take bribes! This is a human rights issue!”

“It’s not a bribe, it’s a compromise,” Five said as he drew a lazy check mark on one of his papers.

Diego made a moody stab at the wood he was carving. “Democracy is dead.”

Allison clapped her hands together. “Okay! Now that that’s all settled, I’m going clothes shopping. Anybody else coming?”

She cast a hopeful look at Vanya, who shook her head.

“I picked up this afternoon at work,” she said. “One of the other servers walked out in the middle of her shift yesterday and never came back, so. More hours for me.”

Allison turned towards the kitchen.

“Klaus?”

“You’re a thief of dreams,” he told her sullenly. “I might steal bicycles, but _you_ steal hope.”

“So is that a yes or a no?”

 _“Yes,_ but I’m going to be a real dickhole the entire time.”

Luther put the last drinking glass up in its cabinet. “I’ll go, too,” he said. “My pants are, like… barely hanging on.”

Allison smiled at him. “We can’t have that. No free shows.”

Luther blushed, smiling back shyly, as Vanya attacked her shoelaces with renewed interest and Klaus made a face into his cereal bowl.

Diego cleared his throat. “I’m not going,” he announced, as though his absence was a punishment. “You three have fun buying your million-dollar underwear. Five and I are going to go through the basement. See if there’s any useful shit down there.”

Klaus perked up. “Oh, are we looting the house now?” he asked in delight. “Nobody told me.”

“Nobody told _me_ we were clearing out the basement,” Five said without looking up. “I was planning to go to the library and do some research. I want to get a sense of how much our meddling in the 60’s changed the timeline.”

“I’m almost positive the clock on the mantelpiece is real gold,” said Klaus. “Pawn that first. I’m claiming a small commission from it for pointing it out, just FYI.”

“We can’t do that,” Luther protested, aghast. “It’s not ours.”

“We’re not,” said Diego. “I’m just checking to see if anybody cached weapons or money down there.”

“Or drugs,” said Klaus. “We could sell those no problem.”

“We’re not doing that, either,” Luther said sternly. “It’s illegal, Klaus.”

“Diamonds, then,” he suggested. “If the basement is full of diamonds, can we sell those?”

“No! We’re not selling anything that doesn’t belong to us.”

“Rare Mesopotamian artifacts?”

Luther frowned at him, confused, while Five smirked at his papers in the other room.

“They don’t belong to the Commission, either,” Klaus pointed out. “They belong to the Mesopotamians.”

Allison turned to face him, and offered a beatific smile.

“Klaus,” she said, her voice full of maternal tenderness, “you have five minutes to finish your cereal and put your shoes on, or we’re leaving without you. One Mississippi, two Mississippi—“

{}{}{}{}{}

The basement did not contain any cocaine—or human skeletons, which had been Diego’s bigger concern—but it did have an awful lot of… stuff.

There were extra chairs and stacks of unmarked VHS tapes. Two women’s wigs in hat boxes, an ornamental vase as tall as his chest, an old sewing machine with a foot pedal. Children’s clothes, bafflingly enough, frilly little dresses in styles long out of date. There were boxes of books and multiple tennis rackets and a wooden chest with an antique sword in it.

Diego couldn’t come up with any logical explanation as to how a flophouse for professional killers had accumulated all this crap.

The most pressing matter at hand, however, was how he could take the sword with him when they left. Luther would bitch, but it was _so freaking kickass._

He was swinging it through the air and wondering how it would do as a projectile when he heard a faint sound from upstairs. He glanced up at the ceiling.

“Calm down, I’m coming!” The knocking started again as he jogged up the steps. “And I’m not the goddamn butler anyway, you know. We need to figure out how to get keys made, because this is—“

He yanked the door open and cut himself off.

“Oh,” he said, trying not to let on how surprised he was. “Uh. Sunny, right?”

Seeing her in the light of day, Diego realized she wasn’t quite as old as he had first thought. More like a forty-something who’d had a rough paper route, rather than the late-fifty-something he’d originally assumed. Still dead behind the eyes, though.

“Yes.” She looked him up and down. “Do you prefer to go by Number Two or Diego?”

“Diego,” he told her with some pride, because she didn’t know it, but he was never going to be Number Two again. _“Only_ Diego.”

Sunny dipped her head in acknowledgement. “Could I speak to Number Five?” she asked. “Please.”

“He’s not here. He went out.”

The lines around her mouth deepened. “Do you have any idea when he’ll be back?”

Diego shrugged. “Nah. Didn’t say.”

Sunny closed her eyes for half a second. “Of course,” she said, her voice tight. “Well. Thank you anyway.”

“Wait.” Diego leaned out of the doorway a little. “What did you want him for? Is something going on?”

She offered him a lukewarm smile. She was not, he thought, a woman who did much genuine smiling.

“Nothing to be concerned about,” she said, and there was that funny, impossible-to-pin-down accent again, on the ‘about.’ “Commission business. I was going to ask if he could lend me a hand.”

Her eyes roved over their front yard, where the parakeet was pecking around in the grass. She sighed. It sounded weary. “He _is_ the best.”

Well. ‘Best’ might be overselling it a bit. There were six living family members, and two had made it into the Commission.

People were free to draw their own conclusions.

Diego leaned out a little further, curious. “Lend you a hand with what? Assassinating someone?”

“No, this isn’t that kind of job,” she said. “It’s—Well. I can’t discuss it.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “You understand.”

He did. And he wasn’t sure what the hell other kind of jobs they did besides assassinations, but it was kind of Team Zero’s fault the timeline was so screwed up, and as long as he wouldn’t be helping to kill some random SOB…

Diego straightened up. “I used to work for the Commission, too,” he pointed out. “What kind of help are you looking for?”

“Oh.” Sunny eyed him with some trepidation. “I remember you saying that, yes. Ah… how long were you there, exactly?”

“Long enough.” When the wariness on her face didn’t ease, he added, “Me and Herb are tight.”

“Mm.” Her gaze flicked over his face, the knife sheathed on his hip, the spot on his shirt where the gauze underneath was making a bump. “Herb has always been a very nice guy.”

Diego bristled. Her tone was mild, but he heard the implication behind it, like he had been a pity hire or some shit. Which he was _not,_ he… Well. Okay. He’d been a nepotism hire. But he was still good, good enough to be recruited on his own merits.

He stepped fully out onto the front stoop.

“Look,” he said tersely. “Maybe I didn’t do all the stupid training crap you’re used to, but I’m plenty capable of handling myself, alright? If you want help, I’m the best you’re gonna find.”

Sunny stared into the distance, frowning as she weighed her options.

Diego held his head up high. It was her loss if she turned him down.

Her eyes met his.

“My car is parked up the street,” she said reluctantly.

{}{}{}{}{}

Vanya flipped up the tab on the takeout lid and took a long drink of her coffee. She would never tell Five, but she liked the diner’s better than his.

She was currently standing in the alleyway behind it, where the smokers came out on their breaks, because they hadn’t had a customer since she’d arrived and she was already bored of marrying the ketchup bottles. It seemed The Tropics was not a hip brunch spot in any timeline.

The back door opened, and the lead chef for the shift stepped outside.

Vanya eyed him as he lit his cigarette. She hadn’t made any friends here, during her last run through. She’d been too focused on her music, too overwhelmed with trying to be a functional adult in the outside world, too unpracticed at meeting people. She’d spent most of her life like that, alone in a medicated bubble.

But there was no medication now. And she’d discovered, back in Texas, that it was nice having someone to chat with, and share a laugh with, and—and she was _likable,_ she thought, and so she raised a hand in greeting and said, “Hi, Vinny.”

His eyes flicked away from the other end of the alley, where a busser and one of the prep cooks were kicking an empty can between them.

“Hey, Vanya.” He took a drag off his cigarette. “How’s it going?”

“Well, it’s going.” She turned her coffee cup around in her hands. “I’m surprised to see you here during the day. I thought you worked nights.”

Vinny hummed his agreement as he exhaled a lungful of smoke. “Yeah, usually, but Jorge asked me for a swap ‘cause he had a thing with his kid. I’m cool with working Sundays, though. I pretty much just stand around all day, get paid for it, and then I’m home in time for _King’s Court.”_

He pretended to throw a basketball. “Nothing but net.”

Vanya laughed and took a sip of her coffee. “What’s _King’s Court?”_

Vinny raised his eyebrows. _“King’s Court?”_ he asked. “The TV show?”

In response to her shrug, he repeated _“King’s Court,”_ like maybe she hadn’t heard.

“It’s like, stupid popular right now.”

“Oh,” said Vanya. “We don’t have a TV. I guess I missed it.”

“Guess so.” He studied her curiously as he took another drag. “So are you from around here?”

Vanya hesitated before answering. She could tell from his accent that he was a native New Yorker, and she wasn’t sure it was wise to start discussing neighborhoods when she wasn’t sure how they might be different from the way she remembered them. For all she knew, Manhattan had fallen into the ocean, and Staten Island had declared itself a sovereign nation.

“I just left Texas, actually,” she said. “I was living on a farm outside Dallas.”

Vinny brightened. “No shit? Did you have chickens?”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out one of those portable phones. Vanya had been curious about them ever since Klaus had broken the news of their existence, but she hadn’t managed to get close enough to one to see how they worked.

“My wife’s brother moved upstate,” Vinny told her as he started pushing buttons on it, “and he got some chickens, but they won’t lay any eggs. What’s your number? I’ll text you his, and then maybe you can tell him how to fix them.”

“Oh, I… I don’t have a phone,” said Vanya, a little discombobulated by being suddenly thrust into the role of Chicken Technical Support.

Vinny glanced up at her with some surprise. “Really? You still just using a landline?”

She shook her head. “No. We, um. We don’t have one of those, either.” After a beat, she added a half-hearted, “Yet.”

“Wow,” he marveled, sounding awed. “Leading that unplugged life, huh?”

“No, not really,” she rushed to assure him.

The last thing she wanted was for her co-workers to start thinking she was some kind of off-grid weirdo convinced microwaves were a government plot to establish mind control. She wasn’t _Elliot_ , may he rest in peace.

Vanya gestured with her coffee cup. “It’s just, you know, we’re still getting settled in after the move. And I… misplaced some stuff during it, like my social security card and all? So it’s taking time to get set up with a phone cell and everything.”

“Cell phone,” he corrected.

Vanya smiled at him awkwardly. “…What did _I_ say?”

At the other end of the alleyway, the prep cook managed to kick the tuna can high enough to bounce it off his knee, and it landed on top of the dumpster. The busboy raised his arms over his head and howled, “GOOOOOOAL!”

Grateful for the distraction, Vanya drained the rest of her coffee as the prep cook sprinted by them on his victory lap.

“Well, I should be getting back in,” she said. “Enjoy your cigarette.”

“Yeah.”

Vinny studied her for a second, gaze pensive through the wisps of smoke between them.

His face split into a smile.

“Nice talking to you, Vanya.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Sunny pulled up in front of an apartment building about six blocks from the house, and cut off the ignition.

“Alright,” she said, twisting in the driver’s seat to face Diego. “Here’s what I need you to do—take notes on everyone you see come in and out of these apartments. Times, physical descriptions, whether you see them talk to anyone.”

“Got it.” He peered out the window at the building. It had maybe fifty units or so, he would guess, which was far from the biggest in the city, but would still mean a lot of foot traffic. “What am I looking out for in particular?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” 

She leveled him with a look. Her expression didn’t change—she was one of those people with a face made for poker—but Diego got the clear sense that she was not going to tolerate him arguing with her.

“Don’t approach anyone,” she warned. “It doesn’t matter who they are or what they’re doing. Just stay in the car, and take notes. Today is only for observation.”

He settled back into his seat. “This isn’t my first stakeout,” he said curtly.

“Good. We’re on the same page, then.” She pointed out the window, at a coffee shop on the street perpendicular to the one where they were parked. “I’m going to be sitting right over there, so I can watch the back entrance while you’re watching the front. I’ll stay where we can see each other in case you need anything.”

Diego glanced at her sidelong. “Where’s your partner?”

“Noor is following up on a different lead.”

She traced her thumbs over the steering wheel.

“This isn’t a job for only two people,” she told him with a hint of chagrin. “There are… a lot of moving parts, and there’s no one left to call for backup. So I do appreciate your help, Diego.”

Sunny had all the warmth of a lizard, but she sounded sincere. Diego thought he could see why Five believed she was someone they could trust, almost. She was a no-bullshit type. He could work with that.

“Don’t mention it,” he said.

She reached into the backseat to grab a tote bag and the briefcase, which she’d uncuffed from her wrist so she could drive.

“Here,” she said, handing him a pen and a pad of paper out of the tote. “There’s a watch in here, too, if you don’t have one. I’ll check on you in a little while, so you can take a bathroom break and stretch your legs.”

“No need,” he said, waving a hand. “Just get me a bottle and I’m good to go.”

“No, you can take a bathroom break,” she said mildly, already climbing out of the car.

She turned to give him a penetrating look before she slammed the door behind her.

“I insist.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Allison flung the curtain of the dressing room aside and gave her skirt a flounce.

“What do you guys think?”

“You look really good,” Luther said earnestly.

She laughed. “See, that would mean more if you hadn’t said the exact same thing about every other outfit I’ve tried on,” she told him with fond exasperation.

“But it’s true,” he insisted. “You could wear a trash bag and you’d look amazing.”

Allison was the most beautiful person he’d ever met, inside and out. It should have made him feel even more grotesque by comparison, but it didn’t. Just the opposite, in fact.

Hers was the kind of beauty that filled up a room and reflected onto everyone around her, and Luther knew in his heart that he was a little bit better of a man simply for being at her side.

“It makes your calves look beefy,” said Klaus.

Luther frowned at him. He either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

Klaus took a step backwards to frame her with his fingers. “The hem kind of falls in a weird place on your legs, I think. I wouldn’t buy that one, if I was you.”

“Yeah?” Allison turned to examine herself in the dressing room mirror. “Yeah, you’re right. On to the next one!”

She yanked the curtain closed behind her.

Klaus crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall.

“You found some things?” he asked, eyeing the clothing folded up in Luther’s arms. “Are we going to get a Big and Tall fashion show?”

“No.” Luther leaned against the wall, too. “I know my size. They’ll all fit.”

“Don’t you want to see how they look on?” Klaus persisted.

Luther studied his picks in confusion. “Well… I got two pairs of pants and a few shirts. So I guess they’ll look like two pairs of pants and a few shirts?”

Klaus stared at him for what felt like a long time.

“I guess I never realized what an eye you had for fashion,” he said finally. He pressed a hand over his heart. “It’s aspirational. I aspire to it.”

Luther knew he was being mocked, though he couldn’t begin to fathom why. He wasn’t a bad dresser just because he didn’t get all fancy with patterns and stripes and more than one color.

He held out the best shirt. “I found this one. It’s blue.”

Klaus grabbed him by the shoulders. “We need to get you on a plane to Milan _right now,”_ he said urgently.

Allison emerged from behind the curtain again, wearing a pink dress with yellow and orange pinstripes.

“Can one of you zip me up?” she asked. “I can’t reach it myself.”

Luther stepped forward as she turned around. His eyes followed the zipper as he closed it up along the arch of her back, between her shoulders blades. Her skin was impossibly warm where his fingers grazed it.

He fastened the clasp at the back of her neck, and looked at their reflection. If he was to reach out, his hand was at the exact right height to rest on her hip, and she could have leaned her head back against his chest.

Their eyes met in the mirror.

“You look beautiful,” he told her.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

Behind them, Klaus clapped his hands together.

“You know what?” he said brightly. “Nothing here is really speaking to me, and I don’t trust Diego to start a drug cartel without me, so I think I’m going to mosey on home and help with the basement.”

“…Oh.” Allison blinked a few times and turned to face him. “But you didn’t even look in the women’s section yet. I saw a pair of gaucho pants with your name all over them.”

Klaus fluttered his hands around. “I’m not really digging the vibe,” he told her. “Lots of bad-look energy happening in here today.”

Luther frowned at the clothes draped over his arm. Klaus must really hate his blue shirt.

“I’ll come back another time,” he was saying. “But you kids have fun, and stay out of trouble.”

An expression Luther couldn’t read flickered over Allison’s face. “Well, alright,” she said. “Maybe you and me and Vanya can go together later in the week.”

Klaus pointed finger guns at her. “It’s a date. Au revoir, boys and girls!”

Luther watched his tall form amble off and disappear between the racks of clothing.

He turned back to Allison.

“Is there anything else you want to try on?”

She shook her head. “This was the last of it. The only other thing is…” She trailed off, and smiled at him in apology. “I still need to get a bra. There’s a place up the street.”

Luther felt his face turning pink. “Oh. Okay, that’s… okay.”

Allison patted his arm. “You can just wait for me outside,” she said sympathetically.

{}{}{}{}{}

Klaus paused at the corner to get his bearings.

The thrift store was three blocks back in… some direction, which he couldn’t remember because he’d gotten distracted trying to recall what the color chartreuse looked like and done a few laps around a playground while lost in thought, and so that meant the house was… in some other direction.

He trudged heavily across the street as the traffic light changed. Life was tough without a navigator. He was probably going to starve to death out here. It would teach Luther and Allison to stop flirting in front of witnesses, at least.

There was an apartment building to his left that he _maybe_ remembered, and then he glanced at a car parked in front of it, and in that car, there was salvation.

“Diego?” He tapped at the glass. “What are you doing? Whose car is this?”

Diego’s head snapped around to face him. His eyes widened, and Klaus saw him say _‘What the fuck?’_ without being able to hear the words.

“Did you steal it?” he asked, louder, as Diego fumbled to unlock the door. “You should probably drive it away, just so you know. That’s like, Robbery 101.”

Diego caught at the latch and shoved the passenger side door open. “Get in and keep your voice down, you idiot!” he hissed. “You’re going to blow my cover. Jesus.”

“What cover?” Klaus asked as he climbed in. “Are we doing spy stuff? I _love_ spy stuff.”

 _“We’re_ not doing anything.” Diego sank low in his seat and darted a glance at the apartment building. _“I’m_ doing Commission shit. That Sunny chick Five knows showed up at the house and asked for help.”

Oh. Well, that sounded like a very Diego way to spend a Sunday. Nice and dangerous, just how he liked it.

“I’ll help, too,” Klaus volunteered as he crossed his legs in his seat. He knew what they said about people in glass houses throwing stones, but Diego made _really_ boneheaded decisions sometimes, and he figured two boneheads were better than one. “What’s our objective, captain?”

Diego gave him a dirty look. “Yours is to get home. Don’t worry about what mine is.”

“No, come on,” he wheedled. “I don’t want to be there by myself. It’s haunted.”

Diego narrowed his eyes.

“For real,” said Klaus. “We live with the dumbest ghost in the world. Yesterday he asked me if I knew how to say Doritos in Spanish.”

After a second of appearing flummoxed, Diego opened his mouth, but Klaus jumped in before he could speak.

“You’re being a bad Team Zero member,” he said fast. “Because Team Zero’s about… cooperation, or family, or…”

He trailed off. They looked at each other.

“Yeah, I wasn’t listening when you read the charter to us,” Klaus admitted. “But there was something in there about teamwork. I think.”

“There was,” Diego agreed begrudgingly. He tapped his thumbs on the steering wheel. “Okay, fine. This is a stakeout mission. Our objective is to observe everyone who comes in and out of this apartment building. Target is unidentified. Further information on a need-to-know basis.”

“So we’re taking notes, and we don’t know why,” Klaus summarized.

“Do you want to help or not?” Diego snapped. He tossed a pad of paper into Klaus’s lap. “You write, I’ll dictate.”

Klaus skimmed what he had so far.

10:42—HISPANIC FEMALE EXITS. GREEN DRESS. HAS SMALL BREED DOG ON LEASH.

10:53—BLACK MALE ENTERS. DENIM JACKET. TALKING ON POCKET PHONE, HEARD STATING ‘I DON’T LIKE CHILI.’ SPEAKING IN CODE???

11:04—WHITE MALE ENTERS. GRAY MAINTENANCE UNIFORM. CARRYING TOOLBOX. APPEARS SUSPICIOUS.

11:08— HISPANIC FEMALE W/ GREEN DRESS AND DOG REENTERS. THREW BLACK PLASTIC BAG IN TRASH FIRST. THEORY: IS MAKING DROP OFF FOR ACCOMPLICE TO PICK UP LATER. ALTERNATE THEORY: BAG CONTAINS DOG SHIT.

“This has been an exciting morning for you, huh?” Klaus asked.

Diego reclined his seat so a passing mother and toddler wouldn’t be able to see his face. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Five folded his hands under his chin, and stared into Ben’s face looking back at him from the computer screen.

When they were young, Pogo had been excited about a new thing called the Internet, and all of the possibilities it presented. It would become the world’s largest repository of information, he’d told them. It may very well revolutionize the economy. It was going to change how people communicated, and how news was spread, and was certain to become a Very Big Deal.

It had all seemed pretty farfetched at the time. Who the hell had a computer, like, _in their house?_

But when he’d arrived at the library and asked to see their microfilm collection, the librarian had looked at him like he had three heads and suggested he might find an online search more helpful, and… Well. Results had been mixed, so far.

The good thing about the Internet was that you could find anything on there.

He’d started out by looking into the JFK assassination. It turned out Vanya had become something of a white whale in conspiracy circles, and theories about what had happened to Klaus abounded. His cult was still around, though it looked like they were spending more time selling organic soap than preaching his gospel nowadays. Elliot’s fellow nutjobs seemed to view him as a folk hero, killed while fighting his way through layers of espionage and government secrecy to get at the truth, which seemed like a fitting legacy. So far as Five could tell, the rest of them had been lost to history, and he was perfectly alright with that.

The bad thing about the Internet was that you could find _anything_ on there, and it was distracting as a motherfucker.

He had made the mistake of looking up their father, which led, of course, to the Sparrow Academy, their history, their powers, their pictures. He’d found himself stuck in a sandpit of information that he didn’t really need, and yet, he could not make himself stop clicking.

Ben was the leader in theory, but their Number Four was the frontman in actuality. He was blue-eyed and broad-chested and had the ability to fly, like a Superman whose secondary power was being good at media appearances.

Number Two was tall, wore her black hair in a sleek bob, and could spark a flame with the snap of her fingers. There was a grainy video circulating that might have been her doing just that in a nightclub, or that might have been a similar-looking woman flicking a cigarette lighter. Five had watched it seventeen times. He could still go either way.

Sparrow Number Three had skin as hard as steel and bones as strong as iron and hadn’t been adopted until age fourteen, bumping everyone else down a notch, and their Five’s powers were kept vague, which made him suspect they were something that wasn’t camera-ready, like Ben’s and Klaus’s hadn’t been.

Sparrow the Sixth had a keen sense of smell.

Five wasn’t sure if he should pity them or laugh.

Ben, though, was the main focus of his attention. On the surface of it, he looked the way he always had in pictures—a little sad, a lot covered in blood. In the posed ones, the ones where he was clean, his smile was shy and didn’t reach his eyes.

He was always standing a bit apart from everyone else. That was new. They’d all always gotten along with Ben. He’d been an afterthought most of the time, it was true, but a pleasant one, because he had been the easiest person in the family to love.

Five studied him in the photo, his face shuttered, his shoulders rigid, his team standing three feet away from him.

Who loved Ben now, he wondered? Were things different behind closed doors? Did they go ask him if he was alright after missions, and help him clean blood clots from his hair, and give him awkward punches to the shoulder when he cried because they didn’t know what else to do?

Well.

He had research to conduct.

Five navigated his way back to the search page, and typed in _‘Raymond Chestnut.’_

{}{}{}{}{}

“—which is how we wound up in India. She was like, ‘blah, blah, spiritual enlightenment, blah,’ and so I was like ‘I’m down for whatever as long as you’re paying,’ and then Ben was like—“

Diego shot up in his seat and clapped a hand across Klaus’s mouth.

“Elderly white female is exiting the building,” he said, eyes trained on her. “Subject is wearing oversized black coat. Not appropriate for the weather.”

Klaus poked his tongue out to lick Diego’s palm.

“Old ladies get cold, you goof,” he told him as he scribbled down the description. “I’m pretty sure their bones hollow out with age. That’s why they’re always breaking hips.”

Diego glared at him as he wiped his hand clean on the seat. “Remind me again why you never went to medical school.”

“Because hospitals are ooky.” Klaus finished writing with a flourish. “That’s icky and spooky. Feel free to use it.”

“Spicky.”

Klaus reached over to boop his nose with the pen. “Nope!”

Diego settled back to watch a trio of deliverymen up the block unload a washing machine from their truck.

After a few moments of silence, he asked, “So Ben was with you the whole time, huh?”

Klaus went still in his seat. Diego hadn’t _wanted_ to put him on the spot like this, but he knew they’d all been thinking it. They needed to get it out in the open sometime.

“Yeah,” Klaus said lightly. “He was around. My own personal Jiminy Cricket and all.”

Diego turned to him. “How come you said he wasn’t?” he asked, careful to keep any hint of accusation from his tone. Klaus lied like he breathed, but he could be honest if you came at him the right way.

Klaus fidgeted the pen around, then smiled. “Well, there was never a good time, was there? I mean, between the Apocalypse, and the Commission, and Dad being a hitman, there was already enough drama. We didn’t want to add to the confusion.”

He flapped a hand. “You know Ben! He never liked to make a fuss.”

Diego eyed him. “Ben was on board with it?”

“Yeah, of course.” Klaus smiled at him again. It looked forced. “What kind of asshole would I be to unilaterally deprive you all of a family reunion?”

“He seemed pretty happy to see me,” said Diego. “At your compound thing.”

Klaus’s expression soured with the speed of old milk. “You mean when you told him to keep possessing me because he’d be more responsible than I would?”

Oh.

…Fuck.

Diego glanced away and flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “Let’s talk about something else,” he said gruffly.

“Yes,” Klaus agreed, _“let’s.”_

“How was shopping?” Diego tried. “You didn’t get anything?”

Klaus winced. “No. I was, ah… kind of the third wheel, if you know what I mean, so I dipped.”

Oh, good God. Diego loved Luther (deep, _deep_ down), and he loved Allison, and he wanted the both of them to be happy, but when they inevitably hooked up, he was going to be loving them from a distance.

It was… eecky. Icky and creepy.

“Let’s not talk about that either.”

“Agreed.”

Diego watched the deliverymen. Klaus doodled butterflies on the pad of paper. Then Sunny, who he’d been keeping an eye on in his periphery, stood up from her table, and went into the coffee shop.

“Sunny’s on the move,” he observed.

“Yeah?” Klaus craned his neck around to see where she’d been. His gaze shifted to the glove box. “What do you think Commission agents keep in their cars?”

Diego seized his wrist before he could try to open it.

“Don’t,” he warned. “Do _not.”_

“It’s a safety precaution,” Klaus argued, reaching around with his other hand. “Come on, you like safety precautions. What if there’s a bomb in there?”

Diego heaved himself over the gear shift so he was partially pinning Klaus to his seat. “If she wouldn’t let me have a piss bottle in here, I don’t think she’s going to blow up her car,” he snapped as they grappled. _“Stop.”_

“Oh my God, you and your piss bottles!” Klaus wrenched one arm free. “Hold it or pee in an alley, you degenerate.”

Diego pushed his face into headrest. “How the fuck am _I_ a degenerate, remember the time you blew your nose on a gas station receipt and put it back in Pogo’s—

Klaus hooked his toes on the glove box’s latch, and it fell open.

They both froze.

“Empty,” Klaus said in disappointment. “Bummer.”

Diego scowled at him. “You’re lucky it’s empty. If you found something interesting, we’d probably get shot at.”

With one last shove for good measure, he climbed back into his seat.

The deliverymen got themselves sorted out and wheeled the washing machine away. Nobody came in or out of the apartments. Sunny was still inside the coffee shop.

Diego looked at Klaus from the corner of his eye.

“…Maybe there’s something in the trunk.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Luther was waiting for Allison exactly where she’d left him, leaning against the wall outside the clothing store.

She let her bag swing between her fingers as she joined him. The temptation was there, as it was with every new purchase, to show him what she’d bought, but he would get embarrassed.

She liked that he did, to tell the truth. It was sweet, in an old-fashioned kind of way. Gentlemanly.

“Hey!” She grinned at him. “Bored yet?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” he said, straightening up. “So. Home, I guess?”

She almost corrected him—it was ‘the house,’ not ‘home.’ That was how she thought of it, and she wanted the rest of them to feel the same. Five was dragging his feet on explaining the dangers of sideways time-travel, but eventually, they were going to find out, and they were going to have to make their own decisions, and she was really, _really_ hoping that their decisions would line up with her own.

But.

They were having a nice day so far. No reason to spoil it.

“We could go back,” she said, “but I still have three dollars of clothes money left.”

She raised her brows in expectation.

Luther lowered his head, a guilty smile spreading across his face. “I have two.”

“Want to pool our resources so we can spend them on something dumb?”

“God, yes.”

She linked her arm through his with a laugh and led him up the street.

{}{}{}{}{}

Klaus and Diego stared into the trunk in bewildered silence.

“Maybe she’s a collector,” Klaus suggested.

“Doubt it.”

“Maybe she’s a hoarder.”

“Don’t think that’s it.”

“Maybe these are trophies from her victims.”

Diego shot him an annoyed look. “Because she exclusively assassinates female joggers?”

Sunny’s trunk was full of sneakers. Dozens upon dozens, stacked neatly on top of each other. The colors varied—a few black pairs here, a red set over there—but the styles were all nearly identical, in a women’s size 7.

Klaus shrugged. “I’m just spitballing possible explanations, because otherwise, I’ll be up all night thinking about this. I mean… _why?”_

Diego slammed the trunk. “There is no explanation,” he declared. “Commission agents are weird and they do weird things. That’s it.”

Well, that much was true. Five drank his coffee black and sleep-fought with Luther most nights. And Sunny had been his teacher, so it all checked out.

Klaus stretched one leg against the car’s rear bumper. “Hey,” he said as a thought struck him, “did you get to see Five as an adult? I know Luther did, but were you there for that?”

“Nah.” Diego paused. “Luther told me had a mustache.”

“No way. Seriously?”

“I know, right?”

“I can’t even picture that,” Klaus said in amazement. “Imagine, like—“

He made a finger mustache over his actual mustache. “Time-travel is like emerging as an acorn—“

Diego snorted. “Why are you making him British? Here.”

He made his own finger mustache. “Time-travel is like two roads diverging in a yellow wood—“

“Time-travel is like tea and crumpets—“

“Am I interrupting something?” a voice behind them asked.

Klaus whipped around to see Sunny, holding a takeout cup and a wrapped sandwich. Her gaze flickered between them.

“I can come back if you’re busy,” she said. Her tone was flat, but her lips twitched at one corner. “This seems important.”

Diego dropped his hand and fiddled with one of his knives, looking vaguely angry, which was his default expression for when he was embarrassed.

“It’s nothing,” he said gruffly. “Just… getting some air.”

He shifted his weight to his other foot and gestured to Klaus. “You remember my brother Klaus. He’s, uh. Joining in on the stakeout.”

“So I noticed.” Sunny gave him a quick once-over. Klaus waved cheerily. “Hello again.”

“He’s my backup,” Diego added with an air of defiance. “We work best as a team. All of us.”

She nodded and set the food and drink down on the trunk of the car. “I asked for help, and I got help,” she said. It sounded as though she was trying to remind herself of this fact. “I brought you some lunch.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Diego glanced over his shoulder at the entrance to the building. “Any new intel on who we’re looking for?”

Sunny shook her head and followed his line of vision. “It could be anyone.”

A young woman in her early twenties passed through the door juggling an armful of textbooks and a thermos. They all watched as she stepped on half of a discarded hotdog, overbalanced trying to check the bottom of her shoe, spilled her coffee all over the sidewalk, and burst into tears.

“We’re dealing with a highly sophisticated operation here,” Sunny said gravely.

She inclined her head at Klaus. “Do you want anything to eat?”

“Oh, well, if you’re offering,” he gushed. “Could I have an herbal tea with two honeys, a splash of non-dairy creamer, cinnamon sprinkled on top if they have it, and a squeeze of lemon? And, I don’t know, some kind of muffin, I guess.”

He shrugged. “I’m not picky.”

“…Sure thing. I’ll be back.”

They both watched her cross the street.

“Can’t split up Team Zero,” Diego said in satisfaction. He held up a hand. “Up top.”

Nobody had been trying to split up Team Zero, but Klaus did love a high-five, so he gave him one anyway.

As they got back into the car, he put a finger across his mouth again.

“Time-travel is like a trunk full of sneakers, because it makes no fucking sense—“

{}{}{}{}{}

Allison turned up the aisle of the dollar store, humming under her breath as she scanned the shelves of finger bowls and plastic flowers and air fresheners.

She had decided they needed to get a spatula while they were here, since the house only had one and the handle kept coming off, but she and Luther had agreed to pick out a present for one another, and she was on the hunt for the perfect one.

Something meaningful. Something that would make up for a decade plus of missed birthdays and Christmases. And that also only cost a dollar.

She paused to check out a row of scented candles, and there she saw it. The ultimate gift.

Luther was in the kitchenware aisle, examining a cutting board shaped like a tomato.

“Look what I found,” she said, proudly showing him the candle she’d picked.

“Full Moon,” he read off the label. He smiled in bemusement. “Is that what it smells like?”

“You tell me.” She held it up to his nose. “Is it scientifically accurate?”

“Well, if you sniffed the moon you’d die, but—“ He inhaled, and made a thoughtful face. “Hm.”

She awaited his verdict as he took another whiff.

“I’m not sure what it’s meant to be—“

“The moon,” she supplied helpfully.

“—but it kind of smells like mountain dew.”

Allison’s lips quirked in surprise. “That’s a poetic description.”

Luther shook his head and squeezed to the side to let someone pass by down the narrow aisle. “No, Mountain Dew the soda,” he clarified. “Really. Smell it.”

“Does Mountain Dew _have_ a smell?” she asked skeptically as she brought it to her nose. “Oh, wow, you’re right. It’s Mountain Dew. This is a Mountain Dew candle. I get it now.”

He smiled at her. “I love it.”

“Good, because it costs a whole dollar,” she told him. “What did you get me?”

Luther picked up a box he’d set on the shelf. “Here you go.”

It was a Lil’ Princess Makeup Kit, for ages six and up. Features included a dangerously glittery eyeshadow palette, the pinkest lipstick known to man, and your very own tiara.

Allison burst out laughing as she accepted it from his hand. “Oh, Luther, how did you _know?”_

“Only the best for you,” he said, trying to keep a straight face.

She wiped a tear of laughter from her eye, because this was just _so_ charmingly stupid. This was what she’d missed the most about Luther. The way he could make her worries melt away for a few moments, the way the world narrowed down to just the two of them when they were kidding around together and talking about nothing.

She’d missed… she’d missed the purity of it. Of enjoying his company, without… other things, getting in the way.

Luther was reaching out to take something off a hook on the shelf, and he flipped it around to show her.

“We should get a spatula while we’re here,” he said. “Ours is messed up.”

She smiled at him. “You have the best ideas.”

{}{}{}{}{}

It was a little past four o’clock when Five strolled into The Tropics Diner, and he’d been expecting to meet the start of the dinner rush.

Instead, he found a single other customer eating a bowl of soup at the counter, while a man in a greasy apron showed Vanya something on one of those miniature phone devices.

“—and that’s my dog, his name is Jeter,” the man was saying as he pressed a button. “And then that’s my wife on Halloween. She was supposed to be Sailor Moon, but she got drunk and her wig fell off. Oh—Sailor Moon is from a kid’s show in the ‘90s.”

“Yeah, I never saw that one, either,” Vanya admitted. “My dad was… strict.”

Five hopped into the stool in front of her. “The customer service here is appalling.”

She looked up, startled, then relaxed. “Hey. Done at the library?”

“For today.”

He turned and gave her coworker his biggest and most friendly smile, because he had sensitive topics to discuss with Vanya, and he wanted him to leave. “Hi. I’m Vanya’s brother Five.”

“Uh… cool. I’m Vinny.” He snapped a dishrag in Five’s direction like he was warding off an evil spirit before retreating into the kitchen. “Holler if you’re hungry, kiddo.”

Five looked back to Vanya. “I’m not,” he said, “but I could use a cup of coffee.”

As she got it for him, he glanced around the diner. Apart from being empty, it was also rundown, all cracking linoleum and duct tape on the vinyl booths. It looked like every other greasy-spoon he’d ever passed through, and then never thought twice about again.

It struck him that he might work in a place like this, someday. Not right now, not looking the way he did, but maybe a few years in to the quiet, normal life he was going to build himself.

The other customer, the soup-eater at the opposite end of the counter, reached a finger into his mouth. When he pulled it out, he brought the upper plate of his dentures along with it.

Five watched in disgust as he set them on a napkin and picked up where he’d left off with his soup.

He’d be fucking homeless before working a job where he had to interact with the public, he decided.

“Black coffee,” Vanya said, sliding the cup in next to him. “Did you find out anything interesting today?”

“Interesting, yes. Useful, not so much.” He took a cautious sip of the coffee. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. “The assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan never happened, and the moon landing was in ’67 instead of ’69. Also Allison’s husband got remarried after we left.”

Vanya’s eyes widened, and she leaned closer. “Five, what—Why would—Have you told her that?”

“No. I’m not sure if I should.”

“You shouldn’t,” she said in dismay. “Let _her_ decide if she wants to look him up.”

“Mm.” He studied her face. “That’s what you’d want, if it was you?”

She visibly paled. “You looked up Sissy, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Jesus, Five.” Vanya ran a hand through her hair, looking torn. “Tell me. It’s not like I was going to contact them anyway.”

Five cocked an eyebrow. “Weren’t you?”

“No. No, I—“ She hugged her elbows, her gaze anywhere but on him. “We aren’t staying here. I can’t stop by and say hello and then take off again, it would be—I can’t do that to them.”

She dragged her eyes up to meet his. “Sissy would be in her nineties,” she said. “Is she…?”

“In 2013,” he told her, as gently as he knew how.

Vanya ducked her head. Swallowed. “Right.”

“Her son’s doing well,” he went on, desperate to share some good news.

Why had he thought her job was a good place to discuss this? He _hadn’t_ been thinking, he supposed. He never thought about things like this. Not until it was already too late, at least.

“From what I gathered, they relocated to Berkeley, and he turned out to be a music prodigy.” He ran his thumb up and down the side of his coffee cup. “Classical piano. I listened to a piece of a recording that was available—he’s very talented.”

Vanya looked up at him. “He made a recording?” she asked in a small voice.

“Quite a few.” After a second, he added, “At the beginning of the one I listened to, he announced what piece he was going to play.”

She drew in a breath. _“Harlan_ did?”

“Yes.”

Five’s coffee cup began to rattle.

“I, uh… I’m going outside for a second,” Vanya said, fumbling to untie her apron. “Just… just sit here, and I’ll, um… try not to knock the place down, I guess.”

“Are you alright?” he asked, trying to stuff down his rising panic as he covered his cup with his hand.

“Fine,” she said, with a funny choked laugh. “I’m—Oh my God, I’m so _relieved._ ”

Five looked on in confusion as she tossed her apron under the counter and hurried into the back.

…Could Vanya cause an extinction level event out of happiness? He hoped to Christ she never won the lottery.

Another employee ambled up beside him from behind the cash register, carrying a cordless phone with her hand clamped over the receiver.

“Where’d your waitress go, honey?” she asked, getting up on her tip toes to see in the back. “The kitchen?”

Five glanced at the phone as he took a sip of coffee. “Does she have a call?”

“Mm, her sister,” the woman said distractedly.

Five plucked it neatly from her hand. “As luck would have it, we have the same sister.”

“Uh…”

He smiled at her. “I’ve got it from here. Thanks.”

After a second of hesitation, she seemed to decide this fight wasn’t worth it, and swept off back to the register.

“Hello, Allison.”

 _“Five?”_ she panted in disbelief. “Is that you?”

“Yes.” He gave his coffee a stir. “Why are you out of breath?”

Static rushed in his ear as she exhaled. “I was running around looking for a payphone,” she said. “Listen—are Klaus and Diego there at the diner?”

“No,” he said slowly. “Why?”

_“Shit.”_

There was a sound like she might have hit something in the phone booth. She took a deep breath.

“Tell Vanya she needs to leave work early, and then both of you come to the house,” Allison instructed, her voice taut. “We’ve… kind of got a situation here.”

{}{}{}{}{}

 _“Enter the Fist,”_ Diego said, deep in thought. _“Die Hard. The Fast and the Furious_ —no, wait, _The Fast and the Furious Three. Bad Boys._ And _Maid in Manhattan.”_

Klaus quirked an eyebrow.

“J. Lo,” Diego explained.

“Why wouldn’t you go with _Anaconda?”_

Diego made a noise of disgust. “I’m not bringing a movie about giant fucking snakes with me. I’m already stuck on a desert island, my life’s hard enough as it is.”

“Some of us _like_ giant fucking snakes.” Klaus reclined in his seat. “Okay, so for me, _The Mighty Ducks 2_ has a lot of sentimental value because it was on in the background when I found out I like being choked during—“

The rear passenger side door opened all of a sudden, and a person threw themselves inside in a jumble of long limbs.

Klaus started in his seat and bonked his head on the roof with a yelp, and Diego hit the horn with his elbow while scrabbling for a knife, and—

“Hello, Hargreeves family,” Noor greeted them as he straightened out his jacket. “I was expecting Number Five, but you guys travel in packs, huh? Where’s Sunny?”

“Here,” her voice said from outside the car.

“Where the shit did you come from?” Diego demanded as she got in behind him, but her attention was fixed on Noor.

“Well?” she asked. Her frame was tensed as though she was walking on a high wire, and the wrong answer would knock her off.

“Whole bunch of nothing,” he said pleasantly. “How was _your_ day?”

Sunny sagged in the back seat.

“We made good preliminary progress,” said Diego. “I think.”

Klaus held up the pad of paper in triumph.

Sunny rubbed at her eyes with the tips of her fingers and sighed. “Now what?”

Noor shrugged, either not concerned at all with how the job was going, or beyond the point of caring. “Get drunk?” he asked hopefully.

Sunny looked at him for a long moment, her expression indecipherable. “…I’m in.”

“Outstanding.” Noor clapped the back of Klaus’s seat as he leaned forward to address Diego. “Take it away, Andretti, because I forget where your house is.”

Sunny handed him the keys. He didn’t have a license, technically speaking, but if nobody was asking for that information, nobody was volunteering it.

Several minutes later, they pulled up in front of the now-familiar weeds and sad fence, and Sunny got out to take over the wheel.

“Thank you for your help again,” she told Klaus and Diego. “Give our best to Number Five.”

“Give him a big ol’ kiss and tell him I sent it special,” Noor called from the back.

“How much tongue?” asked Klaus.

Diego grabbed his elbow with a roll of his eyes and dragged him up the walk as Sunny and Noor drove away.

“Aw, where’d the parakeet go?” Klaus asked, disappointed, scanning the fence. “I saved some of my muffin for it.”

“Oh, God, don’t you start feeding it, too,” said Diego. “You know it ate breadcrumbs out of Luther’s hand yesterday? Any animal that likes Luther is actively fighting evolution.”

“I like the parakeet.”

“I hope it flew into a helicopter.”

Klaus raised his arms heavenward. “COME BACK, ‘KEET!”

The parakeet did not come back. But Five appeared in front of them in a flash of blue, his hair mussed like he’d been tugging at it, and snarled, “Where the fuck have you two _been?”_

“Uh… Out?”

The front door banged open and Allison rushed out. “Klaus!” she gasped. “Diego!”

She skidded to a halt, seeming torn between wanting to smack them and hug them. She split the difference by punching Diego’s chest and jerking Klaus into her arms.

“Ow! What the hell?”

“Aw, I love you, too,” Klaus cooed, petting her hair.

“We were so worried!” she said into his chest. “Oh, God, we came back from shopping and you weren’t _here,_ and—Jesus, leave a note next time!”

“I wasn’t aware that we were under house arrest,” Diego said sourly, crossing his arms.

“No, you don’t understand.” Allison unwrapped her arms from Klaus, but stayed gripping his shoulders as if she was afraid to let him go.

“Someone else was here,” she said. “Somebody broke in while you were gone.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Vanya knelt on the floor, piling the books strewn across it into neat stacks. Upstairs, a storm was raging, but she had elected to weather it in the basement.

“—that the very first time we leave the house empty, someone comes in and tears the place apart,” Diego was saying, his voice strident. “And these Commission people just so happen to need a favor at the same time? It was a fucking setup, Five! That bitch _set us up.”_

“Calm down and listen to what I’m trying to tell you,” Five snapped back.

Vanya and Klaus, who was sweeping up shards of broken pottery, exchanged a look across the room. Never in the history of arguments had telling someone to calm down been helpful.

The responsible thing to do, maybe, would be to go up there and try to pacify Five, but Vanya wasn’t fretting over it.

Klaus and Diego were safe. The briefcase was safe. _Harlan_ was safe, a successful musician instead of being alone in an institution someplace, and oh, a thrill of joy ran through her every time she thought of that! Her chest ached in the best kind of way when she imagined the pride and the relief Sissy must have felt when she realized her son would be alright without her.

Everything that mattered was going beautifully, everything going on upstairs was just background noise.

_“Don’t you fucking tell me to calm d—“_

Five raised his voice louder to drown him out. “I agree with you that someone must have been casing the house, but it makes no sense for it to be Sunny and her partner.”

There were heavy footfalls overhead, and dust shook loose from the ceiling underneath them.

“How do you figure that?” Luther asked skeptically.

“Listen,” Five hissed, “I worked for the Commission for years, and maybe you all think that crossing paths with them a few times means you know better than I do, but—“

“Five,” Allison cut in, “nobody is trying to start a fight with you. Just… Explain your reasoning? Please?”

Vanya tried to dislodge an illustrated copy of _Gulliver’s Travels_ from under a chair. When she pulled it, the cover tore off to reveal that it had been hollowed out, and a small black leather book that read ‘Appointments’ in gold lettering was nestled inside. She lifted it out, curious.

 _Some time-travelling assassin must have left that here,_ the voice in her mind pointed out. _All the appointments are just going to be murder._

…And just like that, her curiosity was gone.

“For one thing, the only reason we’re still here in this house is because they haven’t ratted us out,” Five was saying upstairs, less snippy now. “If Sunny told us she was coming in to get something, we would have hardly been in a position to argue.”

“Yeah, that… would have been easier.” Luther’s low voice floated down. Despite his words, he sounded unsure of himself, like he didn’t know _what_ to think anymore. “And didn’t you say they were looking for Five, anyway? If they were watching us, they’d have known he wasn’t here.”

 _“It was a ruse, Luther,”_ Diego said, exasperated. “She tricked me! She keeps me busy all day, her partner sneaks in here—“

“They wouldn’t _bother_ tricking you,” Five interrupted. It sounded like he was talking through his teeth. “That’s the other thing—if they _did_ want to get in here without our knowledge, why go to all this trouble? Why not just shoot you in the head as soon as your back was turned? The Commission doesn’t do elaborate subterfuge, you idiot, they fucking kill people.”

Vanya picked up a copy of _The Prince_ and opened to the title page, wondering how old it was. It was signed ‘Niccolo’ in scrawling script.

Jeez. _Somebody_ had been abusing their time-travel privileges.

A chair scraped across the floor above, followed by a rustle of fabric as someone sat down.

“Alright, look, the only thing I’m worried about right now is what we’re doing going forward,” said Allison. “We can argue all day about who broke in here—“

“So now you’re on his side?” Diego asked furiously. “I _know_ who broke in here, it was—“

“I’m not on any side—“ Allison soothed at the same time Luther said, “Well, Diego, you do jump to conclusions sometimes—“

There was a fraught silence.

“They gave us a ride back here,” Klaus mumbled under his breath as he kicked at a broken serving platter. “You always return to the scene of the crime to make it look like you didn’t do it. That’s Robbery 102.”

Vanya looked up at him. “I don’t think they can hear you.”

“Oh, I don’t get involved in these things,” he informed her. “That’s why I’m hiding down here with you.”

He stretched the broom out to her. “Pacifist club. Pound it.”

“There’s a way we can solve this,” Diego said with sudden energy. “KLAUS!”

Klaus whined in the back of his throat. “Oh, no,” he whispered. _“Involvement.”_

Diego clomped down the basement stairs. “Klaus,” he said. “Is that ghost here? The one you were telling me about? Ask him if he saw anything.”

“Oh.” Klaus rested the broom against a table. “Okay, yeah. I can try.”

Vanya sat back on her heels to watch. He closed his eyes and shook out his arms, then let out a slow breath.

“Spirit, reveal yourself,” he intoned, “and I’ll give you a piece of candy.”

“Really?” Five asked irritably from the top step.

Vanya lowered her head to hide the fact that she was trying not to laugh. This was serious stuff and all, but… God, everything in their lives was serious stuff, all the time, and this was far from the worst day they’d ever had. She was in a good mood, sue her.

“Shh, don’t question my methods.” Klaus held out his arms. “C’mon, ghost! Give Daddy a hug!”

“Oh my God, is the ghost a child?” an unseen Luther asked in horror.

“I… think this is a different context for ‘Daddy,’” Allison told him.

“Ghoooost? Ghoooost?” Klaus called, turning in circles.

He came to an abrupt stop. “Ghost!” he proclaimed. “Okay, commence questioning.”

“Did he see who broke into the house?” Five asked.

Klaus fell silent. His eyes roved over the boxes and piles of junk, like an invisible person was pacing back and forth past them. Or maybe like they were invisible even to him, and he was trying to guess where they were.

“He says it was two guys,” he announced. “One was a big, chunky dude with a mustache, and the other one was short and skinny and had kind of a funny walk.”

A triumphant smile flashed across Five’s face, propelled by the force of a hundred _‘I told you so’_ s.

Allison poked her head around him. “Did they say anything while they were here?” she asked. “Or take anything?”

Klaus cocked his head to the side. “They didn’t talk much,” he reported after a moment, “and it was mostly just complaining that we didn’t have any electronics. He doesn’t think they took anything.”

Diego crossed his arms. “That doesn’t mean shit,” he insisted. “They could be other Commission agents we didn’t meet.”

“And who really wanted a television,” Five added smugly.

“Yes,” said Klaus. “The ghost would like to emphasize they were very upset that we don’t have a television. Just beside themselves.”

Allison squeezed past Five to sit on the steps. “Alright,” she said, “let’s focus on making on a plan, okay? If it was just a random robbery, that’s good news, but I still think it would be a good idea if we agreed nobody should be here alone. Just in case.”

Diego scuffed his shoe on the basement floor. “Seconded,” he muttered.

“Maybe we shouldn’t leave the house empty, either,” suggested Luther. “Since we don’t have keys?”

Klaus picked the broom back up. “I’ve been locking the door behind me and then climbing back in through the front window. It’s like, security and exercise all at once. So I hate it, but it works.”

“I don’t think I’d fit through the window.”

Klaus considered him from the bottom of the steps.

“…Are you up for a science experiment?”

Vanya scooped up a well-worn guide to making pipe bombs as Klaus jogged up the stairs and began trying to bully Luther outside. Allison followed them, sighing all the way, and Diego stomped moodily after her.

Five zapped to the shelves at one side of the basement.

“You’re awfully quiet this evening,” he commented, examining a jewelry box without much interest.

“Well. I didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation.” Vanya wiped the dust on her hands onto her pants. “I’m not really the person to ask about home security.”

Five studied her face for a second. “Nothing on your mind?”

She flashed him a smile. That was the closest he’d ever come to asking if she was mad at him.

“Nothing bad,” she promised.

She couldn’t pretend it didn’t sting to know she was living in a world with no Sissy in it, but there were other timelines out there.

…And once they found a good one, there was always the briefcase.

Five nodded, his expression easing. “Alright.”

He put the jewelry box down, and added, “If you find any guns down here, let me know, but don’t get your fingerprints on them,” before disappearing.

Vanya laughed a little to herself. If she did find a gun, Five would be the last person she’d tell—they absolutely didn’t need him going full Seal Team Six on a pair of random burglars.

They were hardly a threat to them. The ones Klaus had described via the ghost sounded an awful lot like Laurel and Hardy, actually, from those old comedies.

 _Just a weird coincidence,_ the voice in her head dismissed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter needs a tl;dr. The next one won't be this long, but there was so much stuff that had to happen now because it matters for later because it turns out real plots require planning? This is bullshit??


	6. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some people get dumped, and other people get jumped.

Six days had passed since the break-in, and there was no sign of Sunny or Noor. Thing had been a little tense at first, and their new security arrangements had caused more than one argument, (“I’m just going to the library to fact check something. I’ll be there and back in half an hour.” “Five, I already put my jogging clothes on, and we can’t leave Klaus here alone. _It’s against the rules.”_ ) but the robbery was already being eclipsed by a more exciting development: Vanya had started arriving home with gifts.

“This guy Vinny I work with sent these for you,” she said, handing Five a bag of kids’ clothes. “You met him for a minute, remember? He told me his friend’s cousin’s son grew out of all this stuff and they were going to get rid of it, so he asked if he could have it instead.”

Five lifted out a T-shirt with a graphic of the Mona Lisa smoking a blunt.

“It was a very nice thing to do, and you better not say one negative word about it,” Allison rushed to warn him.

“This isn’t—“

“No.”

“I can’t imagine what kind of parents would let their—“

“Zip it!”

Two days later, it was an armful of first aid supplies.

“I told Vinny I was going to pick some things up after work, and he took me to this different pharmacy instead on his break,” she explained as she dumped them on the kitchen table. “His neighbor’s girlfriend works there. So she used her employee discount for him.”

Klaus examined a box of bandaids. “Who has that kind of pull with their neighbor’s girlfriend?” he wondered. “And how do _I_ get it?”

Vanya shrugged. “He knows a lot of people, I guess. He’s just a friendly guy.”

“Yeah, seems like he wants to get real friendly with _you,”_ Diego muttered.

“He’s married,” she said, a little uncertain. “He talks about his wife kind of a lot.”

“Ooh, maybe they’re shooting for a menage,” Klaus said in delight. He put his hands behind his head and pelvic-thrusted his way towards Vanya. “As long as they’re both hot, I say go for it.”

Diego grabbed his shoulders and forced him into a chair. “If you ever dance like that again,” he warned, “I am going to make you eat a shoe.”

On Thursday, she came home with tears pricking her eyes and a violin in her arms.

“I, um… I’d told Vinny that I played, but that I didn’t have an instrument right now.”

Her voice was hushed and she cradled the open case in her lap like a baby, unable to tear her eyes away from it.

“And—I guess his mom’s friend’s ex-husband owns a pawn shop? So Vinny asked him to call if they got one in, and he sold it to me for what he had paid for it. It’s just a student violin, so um. It wasn’t all that much.”

“You should ask him for a car,” said Five. “His aunt’s hairdresser probably sat next to someone on a bus one time who’s selling one cheap.”

Luther sat down beside her on the sofa. “Can you play something?” he asked. He smiled. “It’s been a long time since I heard you.”

Vanya nodded and lifted the violin out, her hands trembling.

_ScrEeeEEE—_

“Oh my God,” she laughed while Luther cringed and Five tensed up like he was preparing to jump away. “Still got it!”

“That was… supposed to sound like that?” Luther asked tentatively. “I mean! It was great. It was really great, Vanya.”

He threw a meaningful look to Five, who offered a stiff, “Amazing.”

She laughed harder. “Guys, I’m kidding. This violin is _really_ out of tune.”

It was also nowhere near the quality of the one she’d lost to their original 2019—she still felt a pang every time she thought of it—but it worked, and it was hers, and it was one of the kindest things anyone had ever done for her.

Getting friendly with Vinny was paying off in spades. But… she had to wonder if Diego was right. About his motives.

It was pouring rain when they pulled up in front of the house, the windshield wipers on Vinny’s car barely able to keep up.

“I really can’t thank you enough for driving me home,” Vanya said as he turned off the ignition. She tapped the box in her lap. “And for this.”

“Yeah, no problem.” He smiled at her. “Want me to come in for a minute so I can show you guys how it works and all?”

Vanya hesitated. “Yeah. Yeah, if you don’t mind. That would be great.”

Klaus opened the door as she wheeled the bicycle up the walk, and raised his eyebrows at them. “Why, hello, there!” he called. “This must be Vinny. I’m Klaus, Vanya’s most handsome and humble brother.”

He stepped back and gestured them inside with a dramatic bow. “Please keep in mind this house came pre-furnished, and we bear no responsibility for the décor.”

“Aw, man, drop ceilings,” Vinny said in amusement, scanning them. “Takes me _right_ back to Nana’s place.”

Allison wandered in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishrag, and two sets of footsteps Vanya could identify as Luther and Diego thudded on the basement stairs. Five zapped himself by the bookcase and froze for a second in alarm, but luckily, Vinny was busy introducing himself to Allison, and hadn’t noticed.

“Vinny gave me a ride home,” Vanya explained as Diego and Luther emerged from downstairs. “And… he has something for us.”

She held out the box.

“A cell phone,” Allison marveled, taking it from her. “Oh, wow.”

“It’s an old one I had,” he said, “but it still works good. I just had them reactivate it under my account, with a basic plan.”

“We can give him cash for our part of the bill every month,” said Vanya.

Diego was trying to catch her eye, probably to give her a nonverbal dressing down for continuing to accept gifts from strange men, but she ignored him.

“I just thought it would be good if we had a way to call the house,” she went on. “In case of another situation like what happened the other day?”

Luther nodded. “Oh, yeah. That’s a good point.”

Diego muttered his reluctant agreement. Klaus, who had pressed a button on the phone, jumped as it made a chiming sound.

“I’ll show you how it works,” Vinny was saying, digging into the pocket of his jacket. “It’s mad easy, really, just… Oh. I left the charger in my car.”

He flipped his hood back up. “Gimme a sec.”

Vanya bit her lip. After a moment of deliberation, she followed him outside.

As he rummaged around in his glove compartment, she climbed into the passenger seat, and closed the door behind her.

“Vinny,” she said.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just…” She twisted her hands in her lap. “I, um. I wanted to say, I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing for me, these past few days. Doing for us.”

He straightened up to flash her a smile. “Hey, no problem. What are friends for?”

“Well, that’s just it.” She took a deep breath through her nose. “I… I’m not sure what I can do to repay you. Because I do want to be friends, but… but nothing more. Than that.”

Vinny went still, looking at her with wide eyes. “Uh… okay. Wow.”

“Maybe I’m reading this all wrong,” she said fast. “I mean, I didn’t mean to _assume_ anything, but it just seemed like—“

He shook his head. “No, no, Vanya, it’s not your fault,” he told her gently. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

She knotted her fingers together, feeling her face flush with embarrassment. God, her real superpower was making an ass of herself, wasn’t it?

Vinny straightened up in his seat and twisted to face her. “I know this must all be so different from what you were used to,” he said. “But it’s like, a normal thing here for men and women to be only friends. I’m not trying to run any games on you.”

“Right,” she said, wishing she could just curl up and die. This was what she got for listening to Diego.

“And—well, just for the record, outside the farm, you can only be married to one person at a time,” he informed her.

Vanya blinked at him in confusion. He looked alarmingly earnest.

What the hell kind of farm did he think she came from, where polygamy was the default?

…Where she had never used a cell phone, and never seen the most popular show on television, and had lost all of her identifying documents, and had a father who was _very_ strict?

“Vinny,” she said slowly, as the realization dawned, “do you think that we escaped from some kind of religious cult?”

He held up his hands. “Oh, nah, I don’t think anything,” he hastened to assure her. “I don’t know what your life was like out there. None of my business.”

Oh God. He _did._

“But hey.” He reached over to grip her hand, his eyes shining. “I think you’re really brave starting over in a new city like this. A lot of people couldn’t hack it. But you’re doing an amazing job.”

The front door of the house opened, and Luther’s enormous frame leaned out into the rain.

“Uh… guys?” he called with muted panic. “I’m not sure what I did, but I pushed a button on the phone and now I think it’s calling 911, and—I don’t know how to make it stop.”

Vinny leaned across her. “Be right there, bud!”

He grabbed the charger and stowed it in his pocket, then gave Vanya’s hand one last squeeze.

“Anything you guys need,” he told her, “you just let me know. Okay? Because I have hook-ups for, like, _everything.”_

Jesus Christ. She wasn’t _that_ weird that the only possible explanation was she’d been raised in isolation from general society. Like, she _had_ been, but not in the way he was thinking. She was basically a normal person.

Who had superpowers.

And a family with superpowers.

And shared a bed with her adult sister.

And hadn’t learned to ride a bicycle until last week.

Vanya closed her eyes and sighed.

“…Thanks, Vinny.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Five flipped a page in the cookbook he had found and skimmed it.

“Chicken Picante,” he announced. “Sautéed chicken breast with white wine—Alright, well, we don’t have any wine, so forget this one.”

Luther lounged against the kitchen counter. “We could make spaghetti,” he suggested.

“We’re not making spaghetti.” Five turned another page. “Chicken cacciatore. Chicken thighs with tomatoes, mushrooms, bell peppers, red wine—“

He looked up at Luther with a frown. “I think we’re going to need to go to the liquor store.”

“We wouldn’t if we made spaghetti.”

Five closed the cookbook, and fixed Luther with an icy look.

“Listen,” he said tersely. “We have been in this house for close to three weeks, and you and I are the only people who have yet to prepare a meal. Allison and Vanya have made us dinner. Diego has made us dinner. _Klaus_ has made us dinner. It’s time for us to contribute.”

“All Klaus did was heat up canned soup,” Luther pointed out.

“Exactly,” said Five. “We can do much better than that.”

He flipped the book back open and studied the next recipe, his mouth in a grim line. Upstairs, the distant strains of Tchaikovsky reverberated.

“…How do you make a ‘reduction’ of something? Is that step optional?”

Luther poured himself a glass of water while Five figured it out. He didn’t care much about proving they were more competent chefs than Klaus—mainly because he wasn’t convinced they _were_ more competent chefs than Klaus—but he was fine rolling along with whatever Five decided they were going to do.

His pride had taken a big hit when he’d broken a washing machine at the laundromat by putting too many sheets into it. He needed a chance to redeem himself, Luther guessed.

And if things really went off the rails, there were plenty more cans of soup.

The front door opened, and Allison strolled in with a shopping bag from the convenience store up the street.

“Hey,” she called. “What are you guys up to?”

“Making dinner,” Five told her.

“Oh.” She turned the bottle of dish detergent she’d bought over in her hands. “You’re… actually going through with that.”

Vanya’s playing suddenly seemed to get louder, and the overhead light flickered. The air in the kitchen blurred, like reality was covered in a layer of oil.

Five tipped his head back. “Vanya!” he called at the ceiling. “You’re knocking the house down again!”

She played on. It wasn’t that she couldn’t hear him, because Vanya could hear everything, but at a certain point she’d get so lost in her music it just didn’t register anymore.

Five pushed the cookbook away and rose from his chair at the table. “I’ve got her,” he muttered, then disappeared.

Allison turned away from the spot where he’d been. “So what are you guys planning to make?” she asked, faux-casual. “I was thinking something light might be good tonight. Like sandwiches.”

Luther smiled at her. “I’m trying to talk him into spaghetti. But I think we’re going to end up doing something crazy. Sorry.”

She shook her head with a laugh. “I’m not cleaning up the kitchen after this. Just putting it out there now.”

“Fair.”

Luther took another sip of his water and watched her putter around, putting away the things she’d bought. It was nice, being like this. Domestic. He wanted more of it.

“So, hey,” he said, an odd flutter of nerves in his belly, “I had a lot of fun, the other day. When we went shopping. Before we thought Klaus and Diego got abducted, I mean.”

“Yeah.” She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Me, too.”

“And I was thinking, maybe tomorrow, we could go have lunch together?” He tightened his grip on his glass. His palms felt sweaty. “I thought we could pack something and go eat in the park, like a picnic.”

He swallowed. “Like a date.”

Allison froze, her back to him.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she said, after what felt like years.

Luther’s heart sank. “Right, yeah.” He fumbled a little with his glass. “Bad timing. I know. With the… with everything going on, and—“

Allison turned to face him, her expression tight and eyes sad. “I’m not sure it’s ever going to be a good idea,” she said unsteadily.

“…Oh.”

It was funny. This had started as such a nice day. He was going to cook something with Five, and Vanya was playing her music, and then, in the span of ten seconds, his dearest hope, the dream he’d carried in his heart on countless missions and to the moon and back and across time and space was lying smashed on the floor.

He’d never seen it coming.

“Is it…” He gestured to his outsized chest, to the thick hair poking through his sleeve. “Is it because…?”

 _“No,”_ she said with feeling. She took a step towards him. “No, Luther, please don’t think—That has nothing to do with it.”

“Then why?” he whispered.

Allison touched a hand to her mouth, to her hair, unable to find where to put it. “I… Luther… When we were young, we were so close, remember?” she asked. “We were best friends. We did everything together.”

“Yeah.” Memories of passing notes while Pogo taught them fractions and making Diego swap seats so they could sit next to each other in the car filtered through his mind. “Of course. How could I forget?”

“And then…” She swallowed. “And then it started feeling like more. But, Luther, that would never have happened if, if… if we’d had normal lives. If there were other kids around, our age, to have those feelings for instead.”

She was pleading with him to understand with her eyes, and he was trying—for her, he’d always try—but he didn’t. Couldn’t.

“I’ve thought that, too,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t change anything, because how and why it happened doesn’t matter. My feelings for you are still real, Allison—I _love_ you.”

She closed her eyes. They looked wet at the lashes. “But it does matter,” she said in a shaking voice. “It matters because it’s not just us. We can say it’s okay because we’re not really brother and sister, but—what does that mean for everyone else? Is Vanya also not your sister? Is Five not my brother? Are we just a group of people who grew up in the same house and can walk away from each other at any time?”

Luther moved closer to her. “Of course not,” he said in dismay.

Her eyes fluttered open. In them, he could see that her heart was breaking the same as his was. But he also saw resolve.

“We can’t have it both ways,” she said. “Either you and I can be a couple, or the six of us can be a family.”

She drew in a breath. “I know which one is my choice. And I think yours would be the same.”

Five reappeared in a flash of blue.

“Vanya’s defused,” he said in satisfaction as he grabbed the cookbook off the table. “She’s also taking requests if you have any, but I asked for Mendelssohn, so that’s up first.”

Allison wiped at her eyes and hurried from the room. Luther sagged against the counter, reeling.

“Do you think we can make chicken cordon bleu without ham?” asked Five.

Luther squeezed his eyes closed before the tears could spill over.

“Five,” he said roughly, “for the love of God, _can we please just make some fucking spaghetti?”_

{}{}{}{}{}

Klaus hesitated in the hallway outside of Luther and Five’s room. He glanced over his shoulder in one last plea for backup, but Diego just made an impatient motion at the door and Five shoved his hands in his pockets.

Klaus knocked, resentment brewing. He couldn’t prove it, but he was pretty sure they’d conspired against him to cheat when they had Rock-Paper-Scissored it to see who was going in.

“Luther?” he called.

He got a low moan in response. Like an injured cow.

“I have some dinner for you.” He paused. “Can I come in?”

“No.”

“Hm? What was that? I can’t hear—“ He turned the knob and pushed his way inside. “Oh, look, now I’m in here anyway. Who wants pasta?”

Luther was lying face-down on the bed, and turned to peek at him against the side of the pillow. His eyes were red-rimmed.

“I’m not hungry,” he mumbled.

Klaus held the plate out to him temptingly.

“…Maybe I’m a little hungry.”

Klaus perched next to him as he started to eat.

“Something bothering you, big guy?” he asked, running a hand up and down Luther’s back. “It’s not like you to miss dinner. Or to lie in bed and cry for four straight hours. Unless you picked up some new hobbies in Dallas, anyway.”

Luther bowed his head. “Nothing’s bothering me,” he said around a mouthful of spaghetti. He sounded ready to cry again.

Klaus reached out a cautious hand to pet his hair. “Allison seems a little blue tonight, too,” he said lightly. “Did you guys have a fight?”

Luther made a soft keening sound in his throat, and closed his eyes, and then suddenly he pitched face-first into Klaus’s shoulder in an explosion of tears and tomato sauce.

“We didn’t fight,” he choked out. “She said—I asked if we—and she said _no._ No _forever.”_

Ah. Well, that didn’t make much sense, but Klaus thought he got the gist of it.

He rested his chin on top of Luther’s head. “Aw, Luther,” he said sympathetically. “Break-ups are rough. I’m sorry.”

The door banged open.

“Break-up?” Diego demanded. _“What?”_

“Remember how we agreed only one person should come in here?” Five asked behind him. “Because I do.”

“Allison dumped you?” he went on in disbelief. “Just kicked you to the curb, just like that? After all this time?”

Klaus wrapped a protective arm as far around Luther as he could reach while he sobbed harder.

“You know what I find helps in these situations?” he asked. “Not anything you’re saying or doing, Diego, thanks.”

Diego crossed the room and sank onto the bed on Luther’s other side, an expression on his face like _he_ was the one who’d had the rug pulled out from under him.

“Crazy,” he declared in amazement. He gripped Luther’s free shoulder. “Look, man, I’m sorry.”

“No you’re not,” Luther said tearfully against Klaus’s neck. “You thought it was weird.”

“Yeah, but I’m still sorry.”

He frowned down at the floor for a few long moments while Luther tried to compose himself and Klaus embraced him and Five looked on stone-faced, clearly wishing he was anywhere else in the world right now.

Diego straightened up with renewed vigor. “You know what you need?” he asked Luther. “Some Bro Time.”

“Bro Time,” said Klaus.

“Bro Time?” asked Luther.

Diego nodded, looking pleased with himself. “Bro Time.”

Five snaked out a hand and began closing the bedroom door, with him still in the hallway.

“Stop that,” Diego ordered, getting to his feet. “You’re part of this, too. Do you still have your clothes money?”

Five gave him a baleful look through his lashes. “I do.”

“Good. We’re going to go to a bar, and we’re getting as drunk as we can on thirty bucks.” Diego paused to look at Klaus. “…You can maybe stick to soda.”

“I will have one beer, and I will enjoy it immensely,” he countered.

“Yeah, alright. Deal.”

Luther disentangled himself from Klaus, leaving him much stickier than he’d found him. “You don’t have to do all that,” he sniffled, rubbing at one eye. “It’s not really a responsible use of our money. And I’ll be okay. I’m just sad.”

Diego took him by the shoulders. “We’re doing this,” he said firmly. “Because you guys would do the same for me.”

“We categorically would not,” Five told him.

Diego leaned down to look Luther in the eye. “Bros have each other’s backs when the going gets tough,” he said, with surprising gentleness from a man who owned more knives than pairs of socks. “We help each other out. Nobody gets left behind to cry and eat spaghetti with their bare hands in bed.”

He frowned. “Seriously, why did you do that? There was a fork.”

Luther shrugged listlessly. “It just seemed easier. I don’t know.”

“Well, take a shower before we go.” Diego released him and stood up. “I have your back and all, but not in public while you’re covered in tomato chunks.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Allison’s light footsteps tread down the stairs, and then she was peering over the railing into the living room.

“Hey,” she said to Vanya. “Where did everybody go?”

Vanya put down the book she was reading. “Out to a bar.” She crossed her legs on the sofa. “Klaus told me they’re calling it Bro Time, so. I guess we’re not invited.”

“Oh, no,” Allison said seriously as she came to join her. “How could they do this to us?”

Vanya laughed a little under her breath, watching Allison’s face as she got settled into her seat.

“You told him, then?” she asked. “Luther?”

Allison looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. “I did.”

Vanya brushed some of her hair over her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “I will be.” She turned and tried to give Vanya a smile, but it crumpled in on itself. “Eventually.”

Vanya held out one arm so she could rest her head against her shoulder. “I know this is hard,” she said in soft voice against Allison’s hair. “For both of you. I wish I could make it easier.”

Allison laughed wetly. “Oh, God, having someone who doesn’t hate me is good enough. I’m sure they’re all there talking about what a heartless bitch I am.”

“No,” Vanya said in surprise. “They would never.”

Allison tilted her head up at her. “Vanya,” she said in a flat tone, “how much mature, reasonable discussion do you think is happening at a thing called ‘Bro Time?’”

{}{}{}{}{}

“If I’m being honest with myself, I guess I’ve known for a long time that it wasn’t going to work out,” Luther confessed.

He had his head in his hands, his beer glass sitting untouched next to his elbow.

He gestured helplessly. “I mean, nobody’s getting custody of their kid back while they’re dating their brother, even if they are adopted. It doesn’t work that way. But it’s hard to look at a person for so many years and think ‘someday,’ and then accept that someday is never coming.”

Five drained his beer, and glanced at Luther’s.

“Any plans to drink that?”

Klaus leaned closer to him. “Play it cool,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth. “The bartender is watching us. I’ll give you the signal when it’s safe to chug.”

Diego folded his arms on their table. “You can’t get hung up on one person like that, man,” he advised. “Been there, done that, it sucks. There’s other fish in the sea. You’ve just gotta keep fishing.”

“You mean, what? Date other women?” Luther trailed a finger through the condensation on his glass. “I can’t imagine doing that, to be honest. It’s always been Allison for me. And who’d even be interested?”

“Well, your upper body is a freakshow, but your face is okay,” said Five.

Klaus shot him a look of disbelief while Diego kicked him under the table.

“Last time _I_ try to pay someone a compliment,” he muttered, rubbing at his shin.

Luther shifted in his seat. “You really think so?” he asked slowly. “There… Well, there was this one waitress, at Mr. Ruby’s club. She used to come up to me and kind of put her chest on my arm, and then she’d laugh and yell ‘Titty bar!’”

He took a thoughtful sip of his beer. “She might have kind of liked me, looking back. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.”

Klaus and Diego exchanged a look.

“Well, you don’t have to rush into anything,” Klaus told him. “This might be hard to believe, but I have a lot of experience with casual sex—“

“Mother Superior will _never_ let you back in the convent now,” muttered Five.

“—and it doesn’t help as a substitute for the person you really want to be with,” Klaus finished.

He picked up his glass and took a sip. “Kinda makes you feel lonelier, actually. Knowing that there’s someone out there who’s the exact right person for you, but you’re getting it on with some douchebag you picked up outside a waffle house instead.”

Diego raised his eyebrows, and Luther tilted his head at Klaus quizzically.

He glanced between them as he set his glass down. “Oh. Have I still not told you guys about Dave?”

{}{}{}{}{}

Vanya carded her fingers through Allison’s hair.

“And then… my next worst break-up was probably with this girl who took me to a motorcycle expo thing, like, two months into dating,” she said. “One of the bikini models at it was her ex, who she was always talking about anyway, and she pretended like she’d had no idea she would be working there. She almost had me convinced, but then she said we should go make out in front of her.”

Allison snorted. “How else do you let someone know you’re over them?”

“Yeah. So we broke up in the middle of the motorcycle expo. Some guy selling customized Harleys brought me a tissue. It was a whole big thing.”

Allison twisted around to smile up at her. She never would have imagined timid little Vanya would have so many wild relationship stories. Her own checkered dating history was downright staid by comparison.

“At least you got to make a dramatic exit, right?”

Vanya shook her head. “No. No, she was my ride home, so ah…Things really just got more awkward from there.”

A knock came at the door as Allison burst out laughing.

She rolled off of Vanya. “I’ll get it.”

A young guy was standing there in a Con Edison uniform, a toolbox in hand.

“Hello, ma’am,” he said in a brisk Brooklyn accent. “I’m here with the gas company, we’re looking for the source of a possible leak. D’you mind if I take a look in your basement?”

Allison hesitated. “Ah… could you give me a moment?”

She closed the door and turned to Vanya, who’d drifted over to join her.

“I don’t smell gas,” she whispered. “Do you?”

“Well, no, but…” Vanya tugged at the sleeve of her shirt. “Are you allowed to tell the gas company they can’t come in?”

“I’m not sure.”

They looked at each other, both uncertain.

“If there was a leak, the whole street could blow up,” Vanya pointed out. “So. It’d be more dangerous to _not_ let them in, right?”

“Yeah.” Allison strummed her fingers on the door knob. “True.”

She opened it and waved the man inside with a smile. “Go right ahead.”

“Thanks.” He swept by her, all business. “Basement’s over this way?”

“Yeah.” Allison trailed him by a few paces. “I guess these houses are all the same inside, huh?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” He stepped over the threshold into the kitchen. As he reached for the door knob to the basement, his jacket rode up, and… oh.

Well. He had the uniform and the tools.

But she didn’t think the gas company equipped their workers with handguns.

He looked at her, and she looked at him, and she wasn’t sure which of them threw the first punch.

{}{}{}{}{}

“—and then he joined up a few days earlier than he had last time, so basically I fucked things up in ways that hadn’t even been invented yet.”

Klaus did a drum roll on the table. “I’m a fuck-up entrepreneur. A fuck-up visionary, if you will.”

Diego regarded him across the table, misty-eyed. “That’s so sad, man. That’s a really sad story.”

“You weigh at least twice what I do, and you’ve had half as much to drink,” Five observed. “How are you this bad at holding your booze?”

Luther leaned forward with interest. “But maybe you didn’t fuck up at all,” he said. “Maybe he’s still alive. Why don’t you go find out?”

Klaus shrugged, subdued in a way that was uncharacteristic of him. Not only sad. Remorseful.

“I don’t know if we still served together,” he admitted, his fingers tangling in the dog tags around his neck. “I don’t know if I still went back to ’68. For all he knows, I’m just the queer he punched in a diner one time, and I, uh. I can’t…”

He gestured inarticulately.

“And it keeps getting sadder,” Diego lamented. He propped his chin up on his fist. “At least I know I’m going to see Lila again. ‘Cuz it’s like. Kismet.”

Five reached over and took his glass. “No more beer for you.”

“No, no, it is.” Diego waved a hand. “We’re terrible for each other, right? Our whole relationship was based on lies. We should just stay away. But she’s a lil’ bit crazy, and I’m a lil’ bit crazy, and we’re both the kind of crazy that can’t leave things that are bad for us alone. It’s only a matter of time before one of us tracks the other one down, because that’s the dumbest shit we could do. So we’re actually kinda perfect for each other.”

Luther nodded. “That’s beautiful,” he said sincerely. “Like you’re emotionally unstable soulmates.”

Five sat back in his seat. “Oh my God, you too,” he muttered.

Diego slumped forward a little, bumping Klaus’s beer. “I wonder what she’s doing right now,” he mumbled.

“I wonder what Allison’s doing.” Luther rubbed his hands over his face. “I wish I could go talk to her and make her feel better,” he said miserably. “That’s the worst part. I love her, and looking at me makes her cry.”

“Alright.” Five drained Diego’s beer and saluted Klaus with the empty glass. “I’m getting shitfaced and then all three of us can be your problem, because I am not built for this.”

Klaus sighed. “Can you at least not be downer drunks? Lila can handle herself just fine, wherever she is, and Allison and Vanya are at home having a girls’ night. They’re probably painting each other’s nails and eating all the cookies as we speak.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Vanya braced for impact in the split second she had before crashing through the glass coffee table.

The sound was terrible, and she could have redirected the energy from it into something big, something deadly—but she was afraid to let loose in such a small space, and with Allison so close by.

Vanya sat up, brushing shards of glass from her face, just in time to see the man slam Allison onto the kitchen floor.

“I heard a rumor you stopped fighting us!” she gasped out.

Instead, he grabbed her leg as she tried to kick him, and twisted.

“Why didn’t it work?” Vanya called as she staggered to her feet. “Are you okay?”

Allison yelped as the man wrenched her leg at the knee. “Been better,” she gritted through her teeth. “Can you, ah—!”

Her head still swimming from the fall, Vanya focused on the dishes in the strainer behind them. A bowl exploded, and the man let Allison go with a hiss as porcelain shrapnel embedded into his elbow.

“I meant tackle him or something!” she said as she rolled away, leaving a smear of blood behind her. “Jesus, you got my foot!”

“I’m sorry! You know I can’t do sports!”

 _You should get out of here,_ the voice in her head said. _Grab your sister and run._

Vanya touched a hand to her forehead for a second. Where had that thought come from? Run to where?

Allison shoved the man up against the wall, her forearm at his neck, and threw all her weight into choking him.

_Anywhere! Just take her and get out, you can come back later. Find your brothers or something!_

“Vanya,” Allison said sharply, taking a knee to the stomach without letting go of her target. “Grab me a knife.”

_No, holy shit, don’t do that! Nobody needs to get hurt here, oh my God. Just run!_

Vanya was still feeling lightheaded, and the lights in the kitchen had an over-bright, smeared look to them that she was pretty sure she was the cause of, and then everything clicked.

“You’re not a hallucination at all,” she said out loud, a pit of fear growing in her stomach, “you’re a real person.”

“What are you talking about?!” Allison cried over her shoulder. She was straining now with the effort to keep the man in place as he swung a fist at her kidney.

_No, I’m imaginary! I’m—it’s crazy how imaginary I am. Just so, so, uh. Imaginary._

Vanya shook her head and scrambled to the drawers to find a kitchen knife.

 _Who are you?_ she thought furiously. _What are you, like, like—a telepath? Are you with the Commission?_

 _I'm not with anybody!_ the voice thought back. _Vanya, look, we’re all on the same team here, okay? Please, don’t stab Noor, they don’t want to hurt you g—_

She froze. _Noor._ An image flashed through her mind of a tall guy in a suit, older, with a sly face. _This isn’t Noor._

_Well…_

Allison made an awful noise behind her, and there was a thump, and when Vanya whirled around, she and the man were wrestling on the floor.

 _So the thing about Noor is they look like a different person most times you see them,_ the voice rushed to explain. _And… I think right now they look like a person who doesn’t have ears._

Vanya looked closer as Allison cracked the man’s head against the tiles. Sure enough, the side was smooth, which made no sense because he’d been _talking_ to them, he _must_ have had ears when he walked in here.

 _Shapeshifter,_ she realized in awe.

_Yeah, but… Oh, man, I didn’t tell you that, okay?_

The man—Noor—grabbed a fistful of Allison’s hair and yanked backwards. Vanya skittered forward to kick at his chest and his grip loosened, but her feet were bare, and it was obvious it hurt her more than him.

She reached for one of the kitchen chairs.

 _Wait!_ the voice said. _I can fix this, okay? I can fix this without anybody getting brained. Just—tell your sister to pick a rumor, and then think it really, REALLY hard._

{}{}{}{}{}

“Okay, so—“ Luther put his glass in the center of the table. “Klaus and Allison and Vanya will have one apartment—“

He grabbed Klaus’s glass, long since empty.

“—and you and me and Five can get another one—“

“No, I don’t want to be alone with you and Five,” said Diego. “I love you guys. But one of us would die.”

Luther squinted at the glasses like he was on the verge of solving this puzzle. “Okay, yeah. Uh… So we’ll get three apartments—“

“Why don’t we get a house?” suggested Five. He took a long sip of beer through a straw, which he’d made Luther ask for, because he claimed you got drunk faster that way. “A big-ass house. I’ll rob a bank or something.”

Diego thumped the table, splashing beer everywhere. “Yes! Holy fuck, Bro Time was the best idea I ever had. We just figured out the whole rest of our lives, you guys. We’re going to live in a _house.”_

“One with a garden,” Five specified. His eyes turned soft and unfocused. “Dolores always wanted a garden. She missed seeing flowers.”

Klaus, who had stuck to his promise to have one drink and one drink only, sighed.

“This is karma, isn’t it?” he asked no one in particular. “This is divine retribution for all the times _I_ was a hot, sloppy mess, and other people had to babysit _me.”_

“Would you really rob a bank for us?” Luther asked Five, sounding touched.

Five offered him a hazy smile over his beer glass. “I’d do literally fucking anything to get my own bedroom.”

A wiry guy in an apron appeared suddenly at the table and seized their beer pitcher.

“You guys are done,” he said in a tone that brooked no argument. “Have a good night, fellas.”

“What?” Diego scowled up at him. “You’re kicking us out? Why?”

The man gestured to Five, who was chewing on his straw, glassy-eyed. “Take a wild guess.”

Five flicked the straw to the table as Klaus helped Luther put his jacket on.

“Your beer’s watered down, anyway,” he accused. “You’re not fooling me.”

“Good- _night_ , gentlemen.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Allison ducked as the trashcan sailed over her head.

“What do you mean _think_ a rumor?” she asked frantically. “What’s that going to do?”

Vanya whacked at their opponent’s back with both fists. Her weak little noodle arms didn’t do much good, but it provided a momentary distraction so Allison could get back to her feet.

“I don’t know!” Vanya panted. “There’s—I think there’s someone else with superpowers trying to help, and he’s talking in my head, and maybe he’s going to talk in yours somehow—“

_“What?”_

The man spun on his heel and shoved Vanya to the floor, but she clung to his arm like a particularly tenacious barnacle.

“Try it!” she said. “Look, I’ll be the distraction—“ The guy was doing his damnedest to shake her loose, so she hooked a leg around his waist—“and you just—just think as hard as you can.”

“Vanya, you don’t _announce_ that you’re going to be a distraction—“

Her irises flared white. _“Do it!”_

Allison took a deep breath and closed her eyes, heart in her throat. This was all horribly confusing, but Vanya seemed to have _some_ semblance of a clue as to what the fuck was going on, and she could take a leap of faith.

 _I heard a rumor that you stopped fighting us,_ she thought desperately. _I heard a rumor that you stopped fighting us!_

She had the odd sensation that her skull was vibrating.

_I heard a rumor—_

There was a sudden jumble of… _words_ in her head, fleeting and foreign. Another language, she thought. Arabic? But she couldn’t say more than a few phrases in Arabic, so how would—

 _Focus,_ a different voice said over top of it. _I can’t hold the connection between you for long._ _Try it again._

_– that you stopped fighting us!_

The maybe-Arabic in her head stopped, and so did the man.

He released Vanya and stood over top of her, chest heaving, confusion writ all over his face.

Then his gaze snapped up to meet hers. His eyes narrowed, and his lips peeled back to bare his teeth.

 _“Wyatt!”_ he hissed.

And then he just kind of… disappeared.

Allison reared back in alarm as the gasworks uniform collapsed in a heap on the floor. Vanya got up on her knees, pushing hair out of her face.

“What the hell is happening?” Allison whispered.

Vanya shook her head helplessly, eyes trained on the clothing.

It moved, and Allison swallowed a scream as a bird burst out from under the pile.

A parakeet. Sky blue.

It had sailed through the kitchen window before she or Vanya could even react.

‘Shave and a Haircut’ rapped at the front door.

“WE’RE BACK! IT TURNS OUT BRO TIME KIND OF SUCKS, SO I’M GOING TO STAY WITH YOU GUYS FOR THE NEXT ONE! OH, THIS IS KLAUS, BY THE WAY!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ta-dah, things finally happened! Up next: More things! More happenings!


	7. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Hargreeves get no answers, but uncover lots more questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After this chapter I'm going back to posting every other weekend, but this one is more of a continuation of the last chapter, so here it is.

Klaus wanted nothing more than to fall into bed.

He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep yet—Bro Time had stirred up a lot more emotional turmoil than anticipated—but he was looking forward to collapsing someplace warm and safe and listening to Diego’s breathing even out beside him. Maybe drawing a dick on his face once he was passed out.

But when Vanya threw the front door open, shards of broken glass glinting like a million tiny diamonds in her hair and talking a mile a minute about voices in her head, while Allison hobbled around their trash-strewn kitchen trailing blood behind her and babbling about birds, he realized his night was just getting started.

“—been there ever since I got dosed with acid but it turns out it’s a _real person,_ and he said he wanted to help us but I think he has something to do with the Commission—“

“—pretty sure I was thinking in Arabic, but I don’t even speak Arabic!” Allison snatched up a men’s work uniform off the floor and shook it in her fist. “THE PARAKEET WAS A GUY THIS WHOLE TIME!”

Diego shouldered past Klaus, squinting as he examined the chaos with the expert eye of a man who had been to a thousand crime scenes.

“…Did something happen while we were gone?” he slurred.

Luther tripped over the doorstep, and accidentally punched through the drywall up to his elbow.

The next thirty minutes were a blur. Vanya and Allison tag-teamed explaining what had happened in the most hard-to-follow way possible. Five kept interrupting to ask about parts of the story they hadn’t gotten to yet. Luther bemoaned what a piece of garbage he was for getting plastered while his siblings were getting jumped, and Diego was stuck on whether or not there had actually been a gas leak, and Klaus… Klaus was hanging on by a thread.

His sisters were hysterical. His brothers were drunk. And there he was in the middle of it all, somehow, some way, the one in charge of holding the whole shitshow together. Karma was kicking his _ass_ tonight.

Once the story had been laid out in full, and the confusing parts explained, and re-explained, and then explained a third time because certain people were too trashed to follow along with the rest of the class, Diego drew himself up unsteadily.

“You know what this means?” he asked, his voice ominous.

He swung around to point at Five. “I was right and you were wrong. Sunny and Noor _did_ break in here. Called it!”

Five rolled his eyes as Diego stumbled towards the door.

“We gotta go find them,” he proclaimed. “Figure out what’s going on before they come back and get the drop on us again.”

Klaus darted around him to block his exit. “How about we do that tomorrow?” he suggested. “None of us are in prime fighting form right now. Let’s put on our jammies, and get some sleep, and then we can rain hellfire upon our enemies in the morning.”

 _“Who’s_ not in fighting form?” Diego scoffed. He tried to push Klaus away, but lost his equilibrium and ended up holding on to him for balance. “What, did you get drunk off one beer? Lightweight.”

Luther was sitting on the floor, cradling his head in his hands. “I don’t understand,” he mumbled to himself. “I fed that parakeet every day.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Five complained out loud for the tenth time. He was frowning off into the distance, his face flushed with alcohol. “Where was Sunny? What were they sent here to do? It doesn’t make any _sense.”_

“I let that parakeet eat cereal out of my hand, and it tries to kill my family? _That’s_ the thanks I get?”

Allison dropped into one of the kitchen chairs and crossed her leg over her knee.

“Why bother making sense of it?” she asked, plucking viciously at a piece of ceramic lodged in her foot. “They apparently have a guy who can read minds and _talked to me in my head_ on retainer. Let’s just fucking _leave.”_

Luther peeked at her through his fingers, and Diego put his quest for vengeance on hold to glare over his shoulder.

“We’re not leaving,” he snapped. “What would we do? Hide out in another abandoned house and wait for them to come find us again? Fuck that, we’re not taking this lying down.”

Vanya tilted her head. Shards of glass trickled from her hair like a waterfall.

“Would they come find us again, though?” she asked doubtfully. “The voice—the _guy,_ he said they didn’t want to hurt us. And… it kind of seems more like they’re looking for something…”

She lapsed into a thoughtful silence.

Allison slapped a frustrated hand against the table. “We could go anywhere!”

Klaus shifted against the door. Allison was one of the more level-headed clowns in their troupe, and he could usually count on her plans to not end in disaster, but… he had doubts about how clear her thinking was right now.

Her eyes were wide and her face was pale. There was a tremor in her hand. For the woman who bent minds to her will, the idea of a person who could see straight into hers had to be a special kind of terrifying.

“We could even stay right in New York, but use the briefcase to go to a different year,” she said. “Whatever the hell is going on, it’s obviously not as safe here as we thought—“

“And why are all these people with superpowers suddenly showing up?” Five interrupted, swaying in place. “We never met another one in our lives before last month, and _now_ they’re all coming out of the woodwork? Fuck’s happening here?”

Klaus gently smashed Diego’s face into the arm of the sofa so he couldn’t escape.

“I’m wondering that myself,” he said. He threw a beseeching glance at Allison. “Normally I’d be all for checking out of Hotel Bullshit right now, but, ah… we might want to do some more investigating first. These people will all still exist if we go back to 2017 or whenever. Probably a good idea to try to figure out what their damage is while we have the chance, no? Know thy enemy and all?”

Oh, Jesus. Now he was advocating in favor of doing something strategic. Half an hour of being the voice of reason, and he didn’t even recognize himself anymore.

In response, Allison tore a long, nasty-looking piece of ceramic out of her foot, and hurled it at the floor.

Luther blinked. “You’re hurt,” he said in concern.

Diego flailed drunk and uncoordinated in Klaus’s arms. “Yeah, I’m _trying_ to investigate, so let me up,” he commanded furiously. “Christ, things never would have even got this far if you hadn’t fucked it all up, you—you, uh… _you.”_

Klaus pinned his arms tighter. “Moi?” he asked in bewilderment. “What’d I do?”

“You’re always fuckin’ _lying_ about shit,” Diego accused. “There wasn’t any two guys who broke in here looking for a TV. The hell was even the point of telling us that? To look like you were helping?”

Klaus’s mouth fell open. Five was monologing again and Luther was trying to stand up to rush—or stagger—to Allison’s aid, but he couldn’t look away from Diego.

“I… I didn’t lie about that,” he said, flabbergasted. “I wouldn’t. Not about something _important.”_

Diego twisted his head around to sneer at him. “Cuz Ben’s not important?”

Okay, ouch.

Klaus tried to smile. “Of course he is. But I told you, we agreed—“

“You didn’t agree on _shit,_ Klaus.” Diego bucked against his hold. “Ben wanted to talk to us, and you wouldn’t let him.”

It felt as though all the air had rushed from the room. Diego was right. Of course he was right. Klaus had lied about Ben, and then he’d lied about him again to cover it up because he hadn’t wanted the people he loved most to know the depths of how selfish he really was, and now…

Now he was Number Four all over again. Who you couldn’t trust, or count on for anything, and who you had to work around instead of with to get things done. The teammate nobody wanted.

He swallowed. “Diego, I wasn’t lying about anything that ghost told me,” he said, hating the neediness that tinged his voice. “I swear I wasn’t.”

On the other side of the room, Vanya sucked in a breath. The curtains fluttered in its wake.

“I think I know what they were looking for,” she said, her eerie white eyes fixed on the basement door. “I know what they keep coming back to find.”

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than a loud ‘thunk’ came from the kitchen. Allison snapped to attention in her chair, then relaxed as she realized it was only something falling inside one of the cabinets—but Five’s eyes narrowed, and he popped across the house to investigate.

He opened the cabinet. A metal capsule toppled out, the kind you’d see in a pneumatic tube system.

“What’s that?” Luther asked as his meandering journey to Allison’s side reached its end.

Five pried the capsule open and took out a piece of paper. No one spoke as he scanned it.

He looked up, his face dark.

“Hold that thought, Vanya,” he said. “The Commission is asking me to call them.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Five raked a hand through his hair. He was sitting on his bed, the cellphone on one side of him, and the card with the number he was supposed to call—all thirty digits of it—on the other.

For the first time in a long, long time, he was totally out to sea.

One question after another was piling up in his overworked brain. Why was the Commission contacting them? Who had been talking to Vanya and Allison? Noor=Parakeet=? Was this the actual worst time he’d ever picked to get hammered?

All valid concerns, but one loomed larger in his mind than the rest. _Where THE HELL was Sunny?_

She’d had a hand in this. There was no possible explanation where she didn’t. And that begged the bigger question: Was Sunny also a superhuman?

She had trained him for almost three months before he’d been cut loose to work on his own. Three months of constant proximity. He had seen nothing extraordinary from her, no hint she had skills beyond the average person—but her single criticism of him during that time stood out in his mind now.

 _‘You rely on your powers too much, Number Five,’_ she’d kept telling him. _‘You show your hand too fast. If I had an ability like yours, I would keep it hidden until I had no choice but use it or die.’_

Five ground the heels of his hands into his eyes. They felt gritty with booze.

 _Fuck._ He had always kind of liked Sunny and he had defended her to his family and he had—he had _trusted_ her.

He couldn’t remember a time when he had felt this stupid.

Someone picked up the phone on the very first ring.

“You have reached the Commission, this is the Interim Director speaking.”

Five lay back on the bed. “Hi, Herb.”

“Oh, Number Five!” he said delightedly. “You got my message, then?”

“I did.” He paused. “Sunny told you where to find me, I’m guessing?”

Christ, her name tasted like acid in his mouth.

“Sunny?” Herb asked. “Have you been in touch with her?”

There was a strange eagerness to his voice that made Five frown.

Something was off here.

“We… ran into each other,” he said, wary of revealing too much.

There were sounds in the background on the other end, a rustle of paper, maybe.

“You didn’t happen to get her contact information, did you?” Herb asked hopefully. “We’ve been trying to reach her as well as you. I was hoping she might be interested in coming back to work for us, but… Well, she’s enjoying her retirement, I suppose! I haven’t been able to track her down anywhere.”

…Oh, what the _fuck?_ The hits just kept coming tonight.

Five ran his hand through his hair again as he cast around for what to say.

“I didn’t get a phone number, no,” he settled on finally. Then, with careful casualness, “Wasn’t she friendly with Noor, from case management? He might know.”

“Oh.” Herb’s tone had dipped. “Well, the trouble is, no one has _seen_ Noor in some time now. Not since shortly after The Handler seized control of operations. My hope was that they had left us of their own free will—there are still _quite_ a few briefcases unaccounted for after that business in Dallas—but…”

He sighed. “I’ve started to fear the worst. There was always some tension between them and The Handler, you see, and, well. We both know how dangerous it could be to cross her.”

Five’s mind, drunk and overwhelmed as it was, was reeling.

“They?” he managed. “Them?”

“Noor, I mean.” In a confiding tone, Herb added, “They went through so many new bodies during their tenure with us—I lost track of whether they started as male or female. And I was never sure how to ask, because that’s an awkward conversation, isn’t it? Skirts awfully close to sexual harassment however you bring it up.”

Five closed his eyes. He wished he could reset this whole goddamn day. Just, pick it up, scrape it off into the trash, and start with a clean slate.

“Anyhow, the reason I asked you to call was because I was wondering if _you_ might have an interest in working for the Commission again,” Herb went on. “There would be no contract, so you could leave at any time you choose, and we’re currently offering a _very_ competitive salary.”

“No thank you,” Five said shortly.

“There are bonuses available for completing assignments quickly,” Herb tempted. “And a monthly raffle! You get one free ticket for each job you take on, and then we draw names on the last Friday. Just a fun little perk I thought up.”

“Not interested.”

“This month’s prize is a popcorn machine.”

“Herb. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but I would rather lick roadkill.”

Herb made a sad sound on the other end.

“Alright,” he agreed, forlorn. “But you have my number in case you change your mind.”

“Sure do.” Five rubbed at his temple. “Out of curiosity,” he said, “how _did_ you know where to find me?”

“Oh, with the Infinite Switchboard, of course. We’ve been noticing unusual activity at an address in New York City for several weeks, and then this evening it lit right up like a Christmas tree! So I said to myself, ‘That’ll be Number Five and his siblings using their abilities all at once.’ The other possibility was that a nuclear reactor was melting down, but it seemed unlikely in a residential neighborhood.”

Five frowned. “Our powers show up on the switchboard?”

“Some better than others,” Herb told him cheerfully. “Your spatial jumps track quite beautifully, if you know what to look for.”

He stared up at the ceiling. So, what, the Commission could find him wherever he went in time and space?

Oh, _God._

“Well, it’s been nice talking to you, Number Five! Have a lovely night, and give my regards to the family.”

Herb chuckled in his ear. “And have a drink for me. It sounds like you’ve had a few already.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Vanya dumped the box of books onto the basement floor and hurriedly dug through them as Klaus tried to get everyone else down the stairs in one piece.

“Luther, please,” he begged. “I’ve got Allison, okay? But if _you_ fall, that’s curtains, big guy.”

“I’m not gonna fall,” said Luther.

“Okay, but hear me out—you might.”

“I won’t.”

“Luther—“

There were a sudden series of thumps, and Vanya looked up to see Diego sliding down the last few steps on his ass.

“Slippery fuckin’ stairs,” he grumbled.

She pushed a copy of _The Anarchist’s Cookbook_ aside, and there it was— _Gulliver’s Travels._ The leather appointment book was still inside, small and innocuous.

“I found this the other day when we were cleaning up the basement after the break in,” she told them, lifting it out with shaking hands. “The voice talked me out of opening it before I could see what was inside.”

Allison let go of Luther’s hand as she reached the bottom of the steps and limped her way across the room.

“So you were hearing that voice for a while, then?” she asked. “Vanya—I mean, I know hindsight is twenty-twenty and all, but… why didn’t you say anything?”

Vanya traced her finger over the ‘A’ on the book. She felt like a real idiot _now_ for not realizing the truth sooner, but there hadn’t seemed to be much cause for alarm, at the time. It wasn’t like the voice—the guy—had been telling her to start fires and slap people. It— _he_ —had been gentle, actually, encouraging. Nice, even.

“I really thought it was the acid,” she said. “It wasn’t anything bad. It was more, I kept having all these random thoughts, you know? About stuff I wouldn’t usually think about. Like Doritos.”

Klaus, who was trying to help Diego up, froze.

“Doritos,” he echoed.

“Yeah.” She frowned down at her lap. “I don’t even eat them.”

She opened the book, and her heart missed a beat.

 _Number One “Luther” Hargreeves,_ the first page read. _Number Two “Diego” Hargreeves. Number Three “Allison…”_

Each of their names was listed out in a neat column, in elegant, flowing script. Five’s was crossed off.

“What…” Vanya whispered through dry lips.

She turned the page, and then another, and then she was flipping through as fast as she could. There were more names, dozens of them, maybe hundreds, and most of them were scratched out. The ones still legible meant nothing to her.

“What is this?” Klaus asked. He was leaning over one of her shoulders while Allison leaned over the other, fingers twisting in anxiety. “A hit list?”

“Last I checked, Five is still alive,” Allison pointed out, though she sounded, too, sounded rattled. “And Ben’s not, but his name is still there.”

After a beat, she corrected, _“Our_ Ben’s not alive, I meant.”

Diego reached down and tugged at the book. “Let me see,” he demanded.

While he and Luther skimmed through it and took turns exclaiming _‘What the fuck?!’_ at each other, Vanya pressed her hands to her face.

“I don’t understand,” she murmured through them. “Those Commission agents knew our names. They knew where to find us. If they were going to kill us, what did they need a list for?”

“Wait, go back,” said Luther, tapping on the book. “Why does that one have a bunch of question marks after it?”

Diego flipped back a page and squinted. “Nima Sherpa,” he read off. “Sherpa. Like the people who climb Mount Everest?”

Klaus sat down on the floor and crossed his legs. “Yeah, I don’t know either, but tell me more about this voice,” he said to Vanya. “Did it ever ask you weird questions about your powers? Or taking other people’s powers?”

“No.” She frowned at him. “Why?”

“We-e-ll…”

Luther looked at Diego, his face crumpled in sadness. “Who would want to kill somebody who climbs mountains?” he asked. “All they do is go outside and look at nature and stuff. The Commission is the worst.”

“I bet _I_ could climb Mount Everest,” Diego said.

Allison flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Klaus,” she said with a hint of exasperation, “were you hearing things, too?”

He held up his hands. “I’m always hearing things!” he protested. “That’s my entire deal! I hear stuff nobody else does and then you’re all like, ‘Ugh, Klaus, stop talking to yourself,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m not,’ and then somebody asks if I’m high and then—“

Vanya reached out to squeeze his knee. “It’s okay,” she assured him. “I fell for it, too. Tell us what happened?”

“You can’t just go climb Mount Everest,” Luther was saying. “You have to practice first, or they won’t let you.”

“Who won’t let me? It’s a whole fucking mountain. Are they checking IDs at the door?”

Klaus hunched his shoulders and plucked at a loose thread on his shoe. “So, there was this ghost,” he said. “He was invisible, which was weird, but whatever. And, I don’t know. He was asking me all these questions about if I could take one of you guys’ powers, would I do it, and then he was also the one who told me about the two random people who broke in here. Which seems now like a bamboozlement.”

God, Vanya had _known_ they sounded too much like Laurel and Hardy to be real.

Klaus sighed. “I got bamboozled so hard. I got bamboozled _dry.”_

Allison, her irritation seeming to melt in the face of how genuinely miserable he looked, stroked his hair.

“Diego,” Luther pleaded, “you _can’t_ climb Mount Everest. You’ll _die.”_

 _“You’d_ die.”

“I know, that’s why I’m not doing it!”

“Did the ghost—or, whoever it is, the person—did he tell you anything about himself?” Allison gathered Klaus’s hair into a ponytail and let it fall. “Like what in the fuck he wants?”

“Or his name?” suggested Vanya.

“I didn’t ask,” he confessed in a small, regretful voice.

Allison looked up sharply. “But Noor said a name.”

Vanya drew in a breath.

“Wyatt!” they said in unison.

Luther gripped Diego’s shoulders. “Please don’t go to Mount Everest,” he begged. “Everything is so crazy right now, I don’t know what we’d do if we lost you in a mountain climbing accident.”

Diego softened under his hands. “Well… fine,” he agreed. “I won’t, I guess. If it means that much to you.”

 _“Thank_ you.”

“I’d still crush it, though.”

There was a loud blue pop, and Five stood in their midst.

“I don’t know what this is about,” he said, waving in Diego and Luther’s direction as he picked his way through stacks of boxes, “but it sounds stupid, so—stop it.”

Luther let Diego go, still looking distraught.

Five stopped in front of Vanya. He tried to shove his hands in his pockets, but he wasn’t wearing his blazer, so instead he just rested them on his hips. Like a drunk, sassy middle-schooler.

“Turns out Sunny and Noor aren’t working for the Commission at all, and the reason they wanted me to call was to offer me my job back. Also, they can track us down in any time or place we go with the Infinite Switchboard. What did I miss down here?”

Well. That was a lot.

But everything tonight had been, so Diego handed the book over while Allison caught Five up to speed.

“So, my thinking is that this Wyatt person must also be able to see and hear everything Vanya was seeing and hearing, and he told Noor where to find it,” she finished. “Which _I_ find pants-shittingly frightening, but maybe that’s just me.”

“Nope, you’re not alone,” Klaus told her. “My pants, too, have been shit.”

Five held the book up to the basement light to see it better.

“I don’t recognize any of these names,” he said. “But you can find anything on this timeline’s Internet. There might be a lead in here.”

“A lead into what, though?” asked Allison. “More danger?”

“Probably,” Five said in an offhanded kind of way as he flipped a page.

Luther dropped down to sit on the basement stairs and sighed. “I’m really sick of people trying to kill us,” he said woefully.

Allison got up on her knees on the floor. “Listen,” she said, her voice tinged with urgency. “I don’t know what any of this is about, but there’s zero good reason for us to stick around and find out. We’ll burn the book. We’ll pack up our stuff. We’ll take the briefcase to another year, and I’ll rumor us into getting free lodging at a motel or something while Five finishes his equations, and we won’t look back.”

Diego, who had been rummaging around in a wooden chest in one corner of the basement, stood up to glare at her. He had a sword in his hand. Fleetingly, Vanya reflected that if he had been anyone else in the world she would have wondered _why_ he had a sword in his hand, but since it was Diego, it just made sense.

“We are _not_ letting anybody chase us out of here,” he insisted. “We don’t run from danger.”

“We run _to_ danger,” agreed Klaus. “Carrying scissors, and with our shoelaces untied.”

Allison made a face at him. “Klaus, you do realize that the voice wasn’t talking to you out loud, right? He was in _your_ head, too. He might even be listening in on this conversation we’re having right now.”

“I know, and every time you bring it up, my pants get shittier.” He jerked his chin towards Five. “But my name made it into somebody’s little black book, and I want answers.”

Allison’s gaze shifted to Vanya. She squirmed.

It was so, _so_ tempting to just say screw it and hop back a year and let Sunny and Noor and the telepath and the Commission sort their nonsense out amongst themselves. But problems had a way of following you.

 _Their_ problems, in particular, had a habit of chasing them across all of time and space.

“I don’t really want to get involved either, but… I think we kind of already are,” she said with regret.

Luther, his face pinched apologetically, nodded his agreement.

Allison closed her eyes. “Alright,” she sighed. “Let’s throw ourselves in harm’s way. Again.”

“Excellent,” Five said briskly. “Since we’re all in agreement, we can start by going to the library in the morning to look all these names up.”

He snapped the book shut. “For now, let’s go to bed. I am way too drunk to keep dealing with you all.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Luther climbed the stairs slowly, wishing they didn’t creak so much under his weight. Not that he was really going to disturb anyone—Klaus had taken Vanya out back to brush the glass from her hair, and Five and Diego were already out cold.

He wasn’t far behind them. Drunk tunnel-vision was mingling with exhaustion to make his eyesight blur at the edges. But there was something he had to do first.

Allison was sitting on the closed toilet lid in the bathroom, using a pair of tweezers to dig the last bits of ceramic from her foot.

“Hey.” He stopped in the doorway. “Uh. You good?”

She offered him a wan smile. Under the harsh bathroom light, she looked very, very tired. “I think I’ll make it.”

“Right. Okay.”

Luther watched her pick at the edges of her wound for a moment. He wanted to help her, offer to clean it for her or just sit down so she could use his shoulder as a footrest. But, he realized with a wave of sadness, she might not want him touching her right now.

“Um. Allison?”

Her hand stilled. “Yes?” she murmured without looking at him.

“I just… I just wanted to say that I’m glad you’re okay. And Vanya, too.”

She nodded and resumed working at her cut. “So am I.”

“Yeah. And—Allison?”

“Mm?”

“M’really sorry I wasn’t here tonight. To help. With… everything.”

“It’s not your fault,” she said. “Nobody could have predicted any of this.”

“Even so.” He paused. “Allison?”

“Yes?”

“I still love you a lot.”

Her hair was obscuring her face, but her shoulders went rigid. He took a shuffling step forward, desperate to explain.

“I mean, not only in a romantic way.” The words tumbled out of his mouth in a rush. “I love you as my sister, too, and as my friend, and I just—You’re my favorite person. And if you don’t want us to be together that’s okay, I can get over _that,_ but—I couldn’t get over it if you didn’t want me around at all.”

Allison tilted her head up so her face was visible. Her eyes were glistening.

“Of course I want you around,” she said softly. She stretched out a hand, and he caught it. “You’re my favorite person, too, Luther.”

Oh. He had been feeling wound up and stretched out all day, wrong-footed ever since their conversation earlier, but now, hearing those words… _peace._

Maybe he’d never be with her the way he’d hoped for all these years. But as long as he was still with her, it didn’t matter.

Feelings changed over time. Love, like all living things that had the will to survive, could adapt.

Luther brushed his thumb across her knuckles.

“Don’t tell Diego, though,” he warned her. “It says ‘no favoritism’ in the Team Zero charter.”

She let out a surprised burst of laughter. “Good to know. I’ll keep it on the DL.”

“Okay, good.”

He let her go. He didn’t want the moment to end, but it was late, and her hand would always be there when he needed it again.

“Well. I’m tired and I’m sure Five’s going to make us all get up at the crack of dawn. So goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” Allison smiled at him, and it was sweet. “Love you.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Vanya held stock still, arms spread akimbo, while Klaus swiped at her with a broom.

“Okay, now take off your shirt,” he instructed.

She looked up at the dark windows of the house next door. “Outside?”

“No one’s watching,” he assured her. “It’s past everyone’s bedtime. Including ours, so let’s pop off that shirt and finish up.”

Vanya wrapped an awkward arm around her middle. “You’re watching,” she pointed out.

Klaus turned his back to her with a long-suffering sigh. He bet it wouldn’t be a big deal if Allison was the one out here sweeping her.

This was discrimination. He was being discriminated against.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “No cuts?”

“No, just sore.” Fabric rustled. “Are _you_ okay?”

Klaus made a face at the patio chair in front of him. “Yeah,” he said. “Diego’s just pissed I wouldn’t let him go forth and kick ass. We’ll kiss and make up in the morning.”

It was a four step process he knew well.

1) An awkward, fumbling apology.

2) Klaus accepted by cracking a joke.

3) Brotherly shoulder slapping all around.

4) One of them would hit too hard, and then the regular slapping would start.

Behind him, Vanya stopped moving. “What?”

Klaus hazarded a peek over his shoulder and found her doing the same.

“I just meant, are you okay after finding out the ghost wasn’t really a ghost,” she said, her brows knit together. “Did Diego do something to you?”

“Oh. Ah…”

She must not have been paying attention to their little drama in all the chaos. It would be so easy to brush it off, _just Diego being Diego!_ and hide the truth of what Klaus had done for longer, but…

“He called me out,” Klaus told her. “For lying about Ben. And lying in general, really, but in particular about Ben.”

Vanya watched him for a second. Her expression was indecipherable in the dark and the shadows.

“Okay,” she said finally. “Um… Why _did_ you do that?”

Well. That was the million dollar question, wasn’t it?

Klaus whetted his lips. “You know, I’m… not totally sure,” he admitted.

This kind of honesty felt weird. It was like being naked, except he never minded anyone seeing him naked. This, he minded.

“I, uh… I guess it was because it was the first time in three years I’d seen you guys, and we were all so happy to be together again, and, um. If I had let you know Ben was there, you all would have wanted to talk to him, and he would have wanted to talk to you, and… no one would have been talking to _me.”_

Vanya didn’t answer, but her mouth twitched in a frown.

Klaus attempted a laugh. It came out as a nervous little wheeze. “You know how I roll!” he said, flapping a hand. “Attention whore to the max.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s—Well. It’s not great, Klaus. But I get it, I think.”

“Do you?” he asked with a touch of desperation.

“Yeah.” She turned away and shook the glass out of her shirt, then worried the hem of it between her fingers. “It sucks, feeling like nobody really cares if you’re there or not. It’s like you’re invisible.”

Klaus’s chest squeezed. “Well, I find that invisibility can be compensated for by volume,” he tried to joke. “Try to ignore me while I’m singing 80’s jams as loud as I can. I dare you.”

Vanya huffed a laugh. “I’ll take your word for it.”

She pulled her shirt back on and turned to face him. “And you know that we all like... love you, and stuff, right?”

“I do,” he said softly. Then, louder, “But expand on the ‘stuff.’ What does that include, exactly? Like, presents, standing ovations, extra dessert…?”

He did know that they all loved him. He _did._ But Vanya was right, he also felt invisible sometimes, when nobody was listening to what he had to say and they were brushing aside his feelings and forgetting to include him as they made plans.

He’d felt that way for a lot of his life.

…Ben must have felt that way for all of his death.

There was a difference, Klaus thought, between loving a person and treating them with love.

He lingered in the doorway of the room he and Diego shared. Vanya had gone off to her own bed, and Diego was spread out like a starfish on top of the covers, snoring lightly.

The prospect of drawing a dick on him no longer held any appeal.

Klaus tiptoed back down the stairs and curled up on the sofa. It wasn’t very comfortable. It felt like penance.

He laid there awake in the dark for a long time, and when he drifted off, he dreamed of mausoleums and parakeets and soldiers and waking up to find Ben scolding him for falling asleep with his shoes still on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! I hope you all manage to work around the pandemic to still have fun this year. I wore a pair of false eyelashes covered in glitter to the grocery store this morning, so my holiday is already A+.


	8. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Hargreeves do research, get answers, and come up with terrible plans.

“Okay, how about this—Klaus and Diego will stay here for now, and then at two o’clock, Luther and Vanya will come back to the house and switch out?”

Diego scowled at Allison. “I notice none of these plans involve _you_ staying here.”

“You’re right, they don’t.” She leaned against the arm of the sofa. “I’m good at doing research. I _like_ doing research. You get bored after fifteen minutes and say you’re going to the bathroom and never come back.”

“I always came back! I think better if I move around some.”

“Diego. You are all moving around, and no thinking. Let’s not delude ourselves.”

It was the morning after the Hargreeves’ long, long night, and they were ready to head to the library and start digging up some answers. As soon as they figured out who was going to hold down the fort at home.

Vanya peeked out of the kitchen, hands wrapped around a teacup. “We could do eenie-meenie-miney-mo,” she suggested.

Luther got up from his seat on the staircase and stood in the center of the room. “Eenie, meenie, miney, mo,” he recited, pointing to each of them in turn, “catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go, my mother told me to pick—“

“Wait, what?” Klaus interrupted. “That’s not how it goes.”

Luther screwed up his face like he was thinking about it. “Yeah it is.”

“No!” Klaus swung himself upright on the couch. “Nobody’s mother has anything to do with it. It’s ‘catch a tiger by the toe, if he hollers let him go, out goes Y-O-U.’”

“Oh. Well, maybe that’s like, an abbreviated version,” said Luther. “I think we should use the full one for official business.”

Klaus crossed his arms over his chest. “Use the abbreviated one,” he said. “Time’s a-wasting.”

“We could have been at the library an hour ago,” Five said through gritted teeth. “But instead we’ve been here, doing this.”

Klaus flung an arm out towards him. “See?” 

“Alright.” Diego pushed away from the wall and held a fist out to Luther. “Rock-Paper-Scissors. Let’s go.”

“How are we going to do Rock-Paper-Scissors with six people?” wondered Vanya.

“Best of three,” Diego explained.

“… What?”

Klaus sank lower in his seat. “I’m not doing that again,” he said. “You and Five cheat.”

Five sighed through his nose. “We didn’t cheat, you just always pick paper.”

“No, I—!”

Klaus cut himself off, his eyes widening in self-realization.

Allison massaged one of her temples. “Why don’t we all go?” she said. “We’ll take everything important with us, and if someone’s here waiting to ambush us when we get back, so be it.”

“Whatever gets this show on the road,” agreed Five. “I’ll get the briefcase.”

He vanished as Allison started up the stairs.

“I’ll take our money,” she said. “And somebody find the phone.”

Vanya drained her tea. “I’m bringing my violin.”

“I don’t think anyone would steal that,” said Luther.

She set her mouth, uncharacteristically stubborn. “I _know_ they won’t, because I’m keeping it with me.”

Luther held up his hands in appeasement, and Diego swiveled towards the basement door.

“The sword,” he mumbled under his breath.

“You know, when it comes down to the wire, I think I freeze up,” Klaus mused to no one. “I just panic, and boom, _paper.”_

Allison leaned down over the railing on the stairs. “Diego,” she said in a warning tone, “if you try to bring a sword with you to the library, I’m rumoring you to stay here. Like, forever.”

“I’m not taking it with me,” he scoffed. “I’m hiding it. We don’t need these people finding weapons.”

_“They already have guns.”_

Five reappeared in a flash of blue, briefcase in hand.

“Rock-Paper-Scissors just comes at you so fast,” Klaus sighed. “It’s like trying to do psychology at eighty miles an hour. Who can keep up?”

Five strode towards the front door. “I’m off,” he said. “See you all at the library.”

“Jesus, wait two seconds!”

Allison tore up the stairs, Vanya on her heels, while Diego thundered down the basement steps. Luther began tearing the couch apart to find the cell phone as Klaus scrambled for his shoes.

“I’ll walk slow,” Five said graciously, already closing the door behind him.

{}{}{}{}{}

Diego was bored, and considering claiming he needed the bathroom as an excuse to get up and stretch his legs.

In his defense, he had lasted longer than fifteen minutes. It had been an even twenty.

He remembered now why he hated doing research. It ran contradictory to every instinct he had, to sit quietly and read while an emergency was going on outside the library walls. It didn’t help, either, that this was fast proving to be a big, fat waste of time—his first search had turned up enough Ronald Jacksons to start their own football team, and his second had revealed there were almost as many Marie Sorensons on the Internet as there were videos of cats.

And there were like, a _lot_ of videos of cats.

Diego propped his chin up on his fist as he watched a kitten try to climb the leg of its owner’s pants. He’d never considered himself a pet person before, but… they grew on you, he guessed.

Next to him, Allison leaned closer to something on her screen.

“Listen to this,” she said, tracing a finger along a line of text. “’Noor is a common unisex name meaning ‘The Divine Light’ in Arabic.’”

“There’s a fun fact,” said Klaus. He was sitting directly across from Diego, typing with two fingers. “I’ll let Noor know the next time we all hang out.”

“No,” said Allison. _“Arabic.”_

She slumped back in her seat, her face pensive. “I was up half the night thinking about the voices I heard,” she said. “There was the person who might be called Wyatt, but there was someone else, too, someone speaking Arabic, and I think—I think that was _Noor.”_

Vanya leaned around her computer with a frown. “I didn’t hear a different language.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.” Allison tapped her nails on the table. “I’m pretty sure Wyatt like, linked all three of our minds together somehow. So I could deliver a rumor into Noor’s head through him.”

“Shit.” Luther rubbed at his jaw. “You know, it’s kind of a shame we’re not on better terms with him, because that would be a really useful trick to use in a fight.”

“Or in a movie theater.” Klaus typed a single letter with great aplomb. “We could pass each other telepathic messages when we forget what’s happening.”

Five, who had elected to sit at the next computer bank instead of with them, spun his chair around. “While you were all talking, I found Anthony Corba-Wisniewski.”

He clicked something on his computer. “He’s a tax accountant in Winnipeg, and his business has two stars out of five on a rating website.”

“And that helps us how?” Diego asked with a touch of frustration. “Are we going to call him up and ask if he ever filed taxes for a professional assassin? Hope he kept a mailing address on file?”

“I _hope_ he didn’t do their taxes,” said Klaus, twirling a pencil between his fingers. “Should have gone with a three-star accountant at the very least.”

Five’s answering look was scathing. “We’re nowhere near the point of contacting anyone yet,” he told Diego. “Right now, we’re looking for commonalities between these people so we can make a short list of who might have relevant information.”

Diego grunted. ‘Commonalities’ and ‘short list’ and ‘relevant information’ was just a fancy way of saying that this was going to take all goddamn day.

It was a bag of bullshit. They should be _out_ there, scoping out nearby motels and looking for Sunny’s car. That was the kind of research Diego liked doing. He could spend forever on a stakeout and be alert the entire time, but put him in a library for an hour and he was liable to slip into a freaking coma.

Moodily, he typed _‘Nima Sherpa’_ into the search bar. 

“I found a few people named Vivienne Fleury,” said Vanya. She made a note on the paper next to her. “One’s a real estate agent in Louisiana, and one won some money in the lottery in France, I think? I don’t know, the article’s in French. And one’s dead.”

Five glanced over with interest. “Dead of what?”

“Um… Her obituary just says she died peacefully in her sleep. She was ninety-three.”

He deflated. “Would have been more promising if it was a murder,” he muttered, already typing something else.

“You are an absolute ghoul,” Allison informed him.

Diego scrolled through the results he had gotten. Nima Sherpa was a surprisingly common name, it seemed. Common enough to not be very helpful. Idly, he clicked on a link entitled _‘Sherpa People: Naming Traditions.’_

At the other end of the table, Luther made a frustrated sound. “I can’t find anyone called ‘Demis Taylor,’” he complained. “I’m not sure this person even exists.”

Vanya squinted down at the appointment book, which was open between them. “That says ‘Dennis,’” she told him. “It’s two ‘n’s not an ‘m.’”

Luther rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, that makes more sense,” he mumbled.

 **Sherpa children are often named after the day of the week on which they are born,** the article read. **A child born on a Sunday would be named Nima, Monday would be Dawa, a child born on Tuesday would be Mingma…**

Diego snorted. Shit, imagine the chaos growing up if they’d all had the same name? He exited out of the page, and typed in _‘what day of the week was Oct 1 st 1989.’_

A breathy feminine moan pierced the quiet of the library.

Five looked up, frowning, as Vanya flushed pink.

“Klaus,” Allison whispered furiously, “are you watching porn?”

“No! I mean yes, but—“ He bounced a little in his seat, flustered. “Not on purpose?”

“Turn it off!” Five hissed.

“I’m trying!” He clicked frantically at something on the screen. “There’s all these boxes popping up trying to sell me ‘male enhancement’ pills, whatever the fuck _that_ means, and they won’t let me close it!”

Luther rolled over to assist, shoving against the table with such force that Vanya had to spring up to catch her monitor before it fell.

“Look, all you have to do is—“ He trailed off, eyes widening in alarm. “What… People don’t do that!”

“Some do,” said Klaus. His hands were clamped over his face. “I wouldn’t, personally, but different strokes for different folks.”

Vanya winced as another squeal split the air. “Can you please just mute it?” she begged, hefting her computer back into place. “There’s a button on the thing.”

Klaus flapped his hands and spun his chair in a circle. “What _thing?!”_

Diego stood up. “What is it?” he asked. “Turn it around, I want to see.”

Knowing Luther, it was probably about as scandalous as pre-marital hand holding, but he was curious all the same.

“Sit back down,” Five ordered as he scooted in hot to join Klaus and Luther. “If it won’t cooperate with you, you just—“

He jerked his head back, making a face at the screen like he was holding in a sneeze.

 _“Jesus._ What _is_ that?”

Okay, now Diego _had_ to know.

“Turn it,” he ordered, grabbing the edges of the computer from behind. “Show me.”

Allison was on her feet, too, reaching underneath his arms to fish through the wires at the back of the monitor.

“Will you all just stop?” she asked in exasperation. “Oh my God, I can’t take you guys _anywhere._ I’m unplugging this before we get thrown out of here.”

“Fine, just let me see what it is first,” Diego snapped.

“Does OSHA not regulate pornography?” Five asked, his eyes glued to whatever was happening on the computer. “This can’t be safe.”

Diego started to turn the monitor at the same time Allison yanked one of the cords. There was a spark, and he let go in surprise, and the whole thing toppled to the floor.

Allison glanced around to make sure they were alone.

“This was like that when we got here,” she said.

“Yep!” Klaus rolled his chair to the end of the table so he was positioned between her and Vanya while Luther scooped up the computer. “I’ve never even used a computer before. No idea what happened.”

Five rolled back to his own territory, glaring daggers at Klaus all the way. “Something is legitimately wrong with you,” he said. “Your brain doesn’t work right.”

Klaus hunched his shoulders. “It wasn’t my fault,” he protested, glancing between their sisters for support.

Diego thumbed at his nose to hide his frown. _He_ was usually the one Klaus hid behind after he did something stupid.

He… might have said some stuff. Last night. That he didn’t mean. That Klaus was upset about.

All hypothetical, though.

“I was just looking up one of the names, and that was the first thing that popped up.” Klaus cast Five a pouty look. “I didn’t know what it was. And it was a unique name, too, so it was a good one to check.”

Allison sighed. “If this experience is teaching me anything, it’s that most names aren’t as unique as you might think.”

She gestured to her screen. “How many ‘Mirjana Knezevich’s do you think there are in the world? I would have guessed like, three tops, but Croatia is lousy with them.”

Diego turned his attention back to his own neglected search.

 **October 1 st, 1989 was a Sunday**, a box at the top of the page read.

Sunday.

Nima.

…Noooo. There was no fucking _way._

“Klaus,” he said sharply, his heart rate picking up, “what was the porn star’s name? I’m gonna see if I can find their birthday.”

{}{}{}{}{}

The hunt was on, and the pace was leisurely.

Most places charged a fee to access birth records, as it turned out. In others, they weren’t available to the public at all. But with a little luck and more guesswork, the list of people named in the book who had been born on October 1st, 1989 was growing longer.

“Olivia Rojas,” Luther read off. “Born in October of ’89, and died in a car accident in August 2012. It doesn’t give her exact birth date, but I guess it’s a maybe?”

“According to Mara McInnes’s website, she’s twenty-nine and a Libra.” Klaus tapped his pencil against the screen. “She also doesn’t know the difference between ‘who’s’ and ‘whose,’ but I’m not sure that’s relevant.”

Allison gasped. “Oh, I got one!” she said in excitement. “Brandon Culver, D.O.B. 10/1/89.”

Vanya frowned. “How’d you find that?” she asked. “The closest I can get on anybody is the month and the year.”

“Court dockets,” Allison explained. “He’s in prison for grand theft garbage truck.”

Five and Diego had their heads bent together over the appointment book, where Five was attempting to decipher some of the names that had been crossed off via pencil rubbings.

“Look.” Diego tapped on the sheet of paper they’d laid over top of the page. “That one might say ‘Wyatt.’”

“You think they all say ‘Wyatt,’” Five muttered.

“No, for real.” Diego pushed his hand aside. “Plain as day. Wyatt.”

“That’s not anything,” Five argued. “It just looks like pencil scribbles.”

“No, you have to—“ Diego tilted his neck to the side. “Turn your head like this and then look.”

Five did, with no small amount of annoyance.

“Wow.”

“See?” Diego said in triumph.

“Yeah. Now it looks like pencil scribbles, except my head is turned like this.”

Allison paused in her typing. “I guess it doesn’t matter if his name is there or not,” she said. “He was probably born the same day we were either way. Noor, too.”

Yeah. They’d all sort of guessed that. But guessing at something and hearing it stated out loud were two different animals. It was an uneasy thing, to think they were so intimately entwined with these hostile strangers.

After a beat of quiet, Luther’s chair groaned in protest as he leaned back in it.

“So are we thinking all of these people are like us?”

“I doubt it.” Five picked at his pencil’s eraser. He sounded less sure of himself than usual. “There have to be two hundred names in this book. I don’t see how so many people could have superpowers without a single one of them attracting attention.”

Klaus spun his chair in a lazy circle. “Ah, yes,” he said archly, “the evening news _does_ love a good magic baby.”

“Maybe they don’t know they have any.” Diego jerked his chin in Vanya’s direction. “You didn’t.”

“My situation was kind of different, I think.” She brought her elbows up to rest on the table. “I wonder why none of them ever contacted you guys, though. Back when the Umbrella Academy was a thing, I mean.”

Diego scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Yeah, who _wouldn’t_ want to play cops and robbers with the world’s most fucked up superfamily?”

“We’re not that fucked up,” Luther argued. He paused. “But… yeah, they were probably better off.”

No arguments there.

Five crossed one leg over his knee. “It doesn’t matter why they never came to find us,” he said. “The better question is how many of them have found each other.”

Luther eyed the book with some trepidation. “You think Sunny and Noor have more of these people working with them?”

“It’s possible. _Someone_ connected to the Commission was compiling this list, if it was stashed in their safehou—“ Five stopped short, his eyes sharpening. “The _Handler.”_

“What?”

“The Handler,” he repeated impatiently, grabbing his pencil and rubbing it over the page with frenetic energy. “Jesus, this is a fucking _recruitment list._ What were Lila’s parents’ names?”

“Uh…” Klaus drew a circle in the air with his finger while Vanya and Luther exchanged a confused look. “Can we rewind real quick?”

“You’re doing that thing again,” Allison accused. “Where you forget to share important information with us.”

Five made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat and set the pencil down to fix her with a cold glare.

“The Handler sought me out to work under her because I have superpowers,” he said, his voice dripping with condescension. “Then she kidnapped Lila because _Lila_ has superpowers, and she tried to kidnap Harlan Cooper because he, too, temporarily had superpowers. Ergo, I sense a pattern.”

He resumed his scribbling. “Let me know once you find it.”

Luther sagged in his seat. “Holy _shit.”_

“Look at you casually dropping ‘ergo’ into the conversation,” said Klaus. He sounded impressed. “You’re like a teenybopper lawyer.”

Vanya was rubbing her hands over her knees, looking doubtful. “But… Five, you said yourself that it wouldn’t make sense for all these people to have special abilities. And this can’t be like, an exhaustive list of every single person who shares our birthday.”

Five waved a hand as though to dismiss her concerns. “She was probably tracking abnormalities on the Switchboard, the same as Herb was,” he said, distracted. “I’m sure there were false leads. Nuclear meltdowns and such.”

“Nuclear melt…” Allison pressed a hand to her face. “Five. Someday, you and I are going to sit down, and I’m giving you a remedial lesson in how conversations work.”

Diego thumped a fist on the table. “Gill,” he said. “Lila’s parents were Ronnie and Anita Gill, she said.”

Five pored over the paper.

“There,” he declared, jabbing his pencil at a name. “Lila Gill.”

Diego squinted. “Yeah, that’s just pencil scribbles.”

“Turn your head like this and then look, idiot.”

Before a fight could start, Luther stretched one enormous arm across the table and grabbed the book.

“So the Handler found a bunch of people who might have superpowers,” he said slowly, examining the page, “and now Sunny and Noor want her list for… what? I don’t see what their goal is here.”

“Neither do I, but luckily, I know who we can ask.”

Five rose from his chair, and glanced between Vanya and Klaus before he began packing up his things.

“Time to go home. You two need to try to talk to Wyatt again.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Klaus sat cross-legged on his bedroom floor, a ring of Doritos spread around him in offering.

“Wyy-aaatt,” he called in a sing-song voice. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

There was no response.

“I have queee-stions,” he tried. “And if you don’t answer them, Five’s going to beat me uuu-uup.”

Zilch.

Klaus heaved a sigh. Whatever the opposite of gangbusters was, that was how this was going.

It might have been partially his own fault. His mind was… elsewhere, at the moment. Summoning fake ghosts was all well and good, but he’d done some personal research while they were at the library, and, well. There was a real ghost he was thinking on summoning instead, if he could work up the nerve.

A knock came at the door, and then Diego stuck his head in without waiting for a response.

“Hey,” he said. “Anything?”

Klaus leaned back on his hands. “Well, I’ve been sitting here in silence so long I think I can hear my own hair growing. Does that count?”

Diego frowned. “You’ve been up here for forty-five minutes.”

“Tell me, what does the sun look like?” Klaus asked yearningly. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen it.”

Diego stepped into the room with a snort and started rifling through the things on his side of the dresser.

“I’m heading out with Luther, if you want to come,” he said. “We’re doing some research of our own.”

Klaus watched him strap on the knife harness he’d jury-rigged together from two old belts.

“This isn’t the library kind of research, is it?” he asked.

“Fuck no. I’ve had enough of that shit for the day.”

Diego turned around, flashing a grin he probably thought made him look roguish. “This is field research.”

Klaus rolled his eyes and picked up one of his summoning Doritos. “So you need a lookout, huh? Pass.”

“We don’t need a lookout,” said Diego. “We need someone with acting skills. So that rules Luther right out.”

Instead of answering, Klaus bit into his chip. The crunch was full of condemnation.

Diego’s shoulders slumped a bit. “Look,” he said, his eyes on anything but Klaus. “I was drunk last night, but you’re—good at stuff. Certain stuff. And I, uh. Appreciate your efforts and shit. And I trust you.”

He met Klaus’s gaze. His was full of chagrin. “Most of the time. You don’t always make it easy, man.”

Well. On a 1 to 10 scale of Diego Apologies, that was a solid 7. Klaus could have done without the qualification there at the end, but, all things considered, it was fair.

He unfurled his legs. “I know I don’t,” he admitted. “But I’m working on it. New day, new leaf, and so on.”

Diego scrutinized his face for a moment. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I think I’m going to try out this new thing, where, uh. I don’t know, I _don’t_ make shit up all the time?” Klaus gave an exaggerated shrug. “It sounds crazy, but I’ll try anything once.”

Diego nodded slowly. “Alright,” he said. He sounded approving, if somewhat cautious. “Cool.”

“As a show of faith, you should give me your wallet.”

Diego grunted and turned away, rolling his eyes. But not before Klaus caught the ghost of a smile on his face.

“Alright, I’ll give you time to think about it,” he said cheerfully, then bounced to his feet. “What’s our game plan, _capitan?”_

“Checking out motels. My gut says Sunny and Noor are somewhere close by.” Diego tugged his belt contraption into place and reached over to clap Klaus on the shoulder. “You’re going to infiltrate, so put on a normal shirt.”

Klaus tsked and smacked his arm. “Don’t be salty because you can’t pull off ruffles.”

Diego punched him back. “I’m not, and stop hitting me.”

“You hit me first!”

“Not that hard! Fuck, you got me right in a bruise—”

{}{}{}{}{}

Vanya lay on her back on her and Allison’s bed. The room was silent aside from the whir of the ceiling fan. Her eyes were closed, and she was trying to recapture the floating, out-of-body sensation she’d had while she was tripping on acid, the very first time Wyatt had spoken to her.

She remembered the weightlessness of it. How light and unencumbered she had felt. Like it was only the heaviness of her thoughts that had been keeping her tethered to earth. She remembered the exhaustion and the aching despair of that night, and then… then…

She cracked open an eye.

“I don’t think I can do this while you’re staring at me.”

Five, who was perched on the end of the bed, didn’t even blink. “I’m not staring at you.”

“Okay, but… you are, though.”

“Just pretend I’m not here.”

“Five, I can’t. Because you’re staring at me.”

He made an irritated noise, then closed his own eyes. “Better?”

Vanya sucked the inside of her cheek. “I guess so.”

“Good. Back to work.”

Vanya stared up at the ceiling. The irony of the fact that a thirteen-year-old had sent her to her room was not lost on her.

Five’s reasoning for all this was sound enough. _‘Wyatt has a rapport with you,’_ he’d said _. ‘He didn’t want you to get injured, so he’s not a killer like Sunny and Noor are. He’s the weak link.’_

And maybe that was true, but he still wasn’t speaking to her. It had been more than twelve hours now without a peep. And if he had an ounce of sense, Vanya suspected he wasn’t getting back in touch anytime soon.

Still. She figured she owed it to everybody to try. Klaus had given up and snuck off someplace with Diego an hour ago, but she hadn’t had the heart to tell Five she could hear them tiptoeing down the stairs.

“Close your eyes,” he said suddenly.

Her gaze flicked down to the end of the bed. Five was frowning at her.

“You need to shut out distractions so you can focus,” he told her.

Vanya frowned back. “Weren’t _you_ closing _your_ eyes?”

“Clearly, it’s more important that I help you stay on task.”

He folded his legs onto the bed. He was wearing his shoes. Allison had _just_ taken the duvet to the laundromat.

“Relax and think at Wyatt,” he instructed. “Drown out everything else.”

Vanya shifted on the bed. “Okay, but… I’m not sure how to think _at_ someone?"

“Just—” Five made a shooing motion with his hands to hurry her up on her way to inner peace. “Think in his direction.”

“How do I think in somebody’s direction?” she asked helplessly. “How does that work, Five?”

He gave her a dirty look. “Well, I know it’s not by talking to me, so close your eyes.”

With a sigh, she did. She had missed Five terribly in the years he’d been gone, but she hadn’t missed what a little martinet he turned into when he got fixated on something.

Weightlessness. The whir of the fan. Floating. A dog panting.

“You’re breathing kind of loud,” she murmured.

“No I’m not,” he whispered back.

“Do you have a cold or something? What is that?”

“Shh!”

Okay. Okay. Weightlessness. The whir of the fan. Flo—

Five sneezed.

Vanya opened her eyes to see him wiping his nose on his sleeve.

“Allergies,” he said. “Carry on.”

Footsteps were thudding on the hallway carpet, and then there was a soft knock at the door.

“Vanya?” Allison’s voice said from outside. “Can I come in?”

“Is it important?” Five asked, at the same time Vanya said, “Sure.”

He gave her a reproachful look as Allison opened the door and leaned against the frame.

“How’s it going?” she asked. “Any luck?”

Vanya shook her head. “I’m not sure this is going to work,” she confessed.

“We don’t know that yet,” said Five. He looked pointedly at Allison. “Our chances will be better if we limit distractions.”

“Oh, okay.” She made a zipper motion across her mouth. “Pretend I’m not here.”

She watched Vanya, expectant. Five, too, was watching her, an expression on his face like he might ground her if she didn’t buckle down and get to work.

_Jesus._

Weightlessness. The whir of—

“Don’t put your shoes on the bedspread,” Allison whispered.

“Shut up, they’re clean.”

“No they’re not. They’re _shoes.”_

Vanya squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could close her ears so easily.

{}{}{}{}{}

The motel was old and grotty, one of those pay-by-the-hour places where the sheets could stand up on their own.

It had been a long time since Klaus had found himself in a dump like this. Kind of a trip down memory lane, if memory lane was paved with filthy shag carpeting left over from the 70’s.

He sidled up the front desk and knocked on the bulletproof glass.

“Howdy,” he said, once the clerk had looked up from his phone. “I’m here to deliver food—” He held out the brown paper bag in his hands— “but the lady who called it in didn’t say on the phone that this was a hotel. The name on the order is Sunny. Could you tell me what room she’s in?”

This was the eighth motel they’d tried this trick at. Once he got confirmation Noor and Sunny were there, he was supposed to pretend he’d forgotten part of their order in his car and go alert Diego and Luther—but so far, he’d only gotten one desk jockey to even look in their guest logs.

He’d _told_ Diego he’d have better luck if he wore his cowboy hat.

The clerk put his phone down. “Oh. Sorry, I can’t give out information like that.” He shrugged. “Privacy laws.”

“Aw, come on,” Klaus wheedled. “I’m not trying to steal her bank account. I just want to deliver a delicious, delicious burrito and be on my way.”

“Sorry,” the clerk repeated. “Didn’t they give you a phone number when they ordered? Why don’t you try calling them back?”

“No one answered.” He heaved a sigh. “This poor burrito. Getting cold.”

“Well, I guess they’ll probably call you once their food doesn’t get here, right?”

“I guess. Once it’s soggy. And the lettuce is wilted. And the rice is dry.”

He cast a mournful look at the bag. “Yum.”

The clerk wavered, indecision written all over his face.

 _Give me a room number, bitch,_ Klaus thought at him.

Instead, he reached around into the pocket of the coat hung on the back of his chair.

“I’ll tell you what, I’ll pay for their food, and if somebody comes down here looking for it, I’ll give it to them,” he said, pulling out a wallet. “And if they don’t, I guess I have dinner.”

Klaus debated it. All that was in the bag was wadded-up garbage from their kitchen at home.

“Twenty bucks,” he said.

Cash in hand, he headed outside to break the bad news to Diego and Luther. It might be time to admit that this was not the brilliant idea it had seemed on paper.

“—that tomatoes are technically fruit, but I don’t think _everything_ that has seeds in it is a fruit,” Luther was telling Diego in the alleyway out back.

“No, it’s true. Look it up.”

“But—aren’t peanuts seeds?” Luther gave him an exasperated look. “Peanuts aren’t fruit, Diego.”

“I never said they were, dipshit, they’re _legumes.”_

“I leave you guys alone for five minutes and you start talking about science?” Klaus called as he drew up behind them.

Luther whirled around, on high alert, and Diego’s hand clenched reflexively around the handle of a knife.

“I liked it better when you’d just hit each other,” Klaus continued. “Fuckin’ nerds.”

“No bag,” Diego commented, scanning Klaus’s empty hands. “They’re here?”

“Couldn’t tell you.” Klaus did air quotes. “’Privacy laws.’”

Luther sighed and leaned against the wall of the building. “This isn’t going to work, is it?” he asked in defeat. “Maybe we should just go home and think of something else.”

“We need to give it more time,” Diego argued. He turned back to Klaus. “What’d you do with our equipment? We need it back.”

Klaus slouched against the wall next to Luther. “By equipment, do you mean the bag of trash?”

Diego just glared at him. 

“I did a magic trick,” said Klaus. He reached into his back pocket and produced the twenty, snapping it between two fingers. “Shazam! Cigarette money!”

Diego grunted. “So much for turning over a new leaf,” he muttered.

“Oh, that only applies to you guys,” Klaus said, waving a hand. “I’m still going to lie my ass off to strangers. And on that note, we should probably get going before the guy in there realizes he paid me for an old sponge.”

They drifted back towards the street and began walking, not in any particular direction. Klaus was leading the way, and he’d already forgotten how to get home from here. Beside him, Diego was quiet and lost in his own thoughts, while Luther stayed half a pace behind, apologizing to everyone he bumped into.

“If we just had Wyatt’s last name, we could probably go find this MF,” Diego mumbled under his breath. He looked over at Klaus. “What do you know about him? Tell me everything.”

Klaus shrugged. “Nothing much, to be honest. I think he talked to Vanya more than me, and Vanya didn’t even clock he was a real person. He wasn’t big on sharing identifying information.”

Diego shot a dirty look at a passing teenager who was ogling his knife harness.

“There must be some stuff,” he pressed. “C’mon. Think.”

“Umm… Well, we know he likes Doritos?”

Diego scowled at him. “Yeah, real helpful. Is he here in New York, you think?”

Klaus kicked at a bottle cap on the ground. “Not a clue.”

“Where’s he from?” Luther chimed in from the back. “Does he have an accent or anything?”

“Oh.” Klaus wracked his brain. “Just kind of a generic American accent, I guess? I was getting big flyover state vibes, but that’s just one man’s opinion.”

Diego sighed, frustrated. “Look, Klaus, think about every conversation you had with him, okay? There has to be something.”

An old man walking in the opposite direction bonked into Luther’s bicep and stumbled backwards like a pinball off a bumper. They paused for a moment while Luther grabbed him and set him back on his feet, apologizing profusely.

 _Had_ Wyatt told him anything important? Most of their conversations had been pretty short. The time Klaus had been trying to do a cartwheel, and he had suggested it might work better if his pants weren’t so tight. The night Allison had trimmed his hair, and he’d checked in to tell him he looked like Charles Manson, ‘but not in a bad way.’

The longest they’d ever talked had been the first time. When he’d been asking about Klaus’s powers, and if he had ever considered—

“Oh, _shitwhistles,”_ Klaus said in horror.

Diego looked to him sharply as the old man tottered off to fall down someplace else.

“What?” he asked, an edge of eagerness to his voice. “Did you remember something?”

“Uh… Yeah.” Klaus swallowed around the lump growing in his throat. “You’re not going to like it, but, um… I think I know what they’re planning to do with the book.”

{}{}{}{}{}

“Stealing powers,” Five repeated. He pressed his lips together. “And it just now occurred to you to tell us this?”

Klaus was fluttering around Vanya and Allison’s room in a ball of nervous energy, his face ashen.

“I didn’t think It was important at the time,” he said, picking up a bottle of hand lotion off the dresser for no reason. “Like, how the shit would you go about taking somebody’s superpowers? Is it even possible?”

The way Five saw it, it didn’t matter if it was possible. It only mattered that Wyatt, and presumably Sunny and Noor as well, thought that it was.

He ran a hand through his hair. Jesus fucking _Christ._ Every time he thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. Life just kept finding a way.

Allison was sitting next to him on the bed, one foot tapping on the floor. “Tell us again how you shared your powers with Harlan Cooper?” she asked Vanya. “I remember you said he wasn’t breathing, and you tried to resuscitate him…?”

Vanya shook her head. “And that’s it,” she said, fidgeting her fingers around. “There wasn’t anything else. I didn’t like… _try_ to do it, or anything.”

“Okay.” Allison frowned up at the ceiling. “Well, we’re definitely not giving random strangers mouth-to-mouth, so that can’t be their plan.”

Luther was filling the entire doorframe, a hulking intruder into this feminine room.

“Maybe it works the other way around, too,” he suggested. “Like, if they gave _us_ mouth-to-mouth, they could take our powers that way.”

He gestured uncomfortably at Allison. “I guess nothing happened when I gave _you_ mouth-to-mouth, but… you weren’t all the way dead.”

Klaus made a small mewl of distress and grabbed Vanya’s hairbrush. He cradled it and the bottle of lotion against his chest.

“But I’m not sure it’s us they’re after at all,” said Allison. “Think about it—they were watching us for weeks. There were any number of times one of us was alone in the house. If they wanted to grab us, they had lots of opportunity.”

Five was inclined to agree, but the possibility that they wanted to rob some other unfortunate soul who had made it into the Handler’s book was no more appealing. There was no telling what abilities were out there—in the wrong hands, they could easily be looking at a third Apocalypse.

Diego pushed past Luther as Klaus added Allison’s special shampoo to the pile of random crap he was hugging.

“I don’t give a shit who their target is, we’re not letting them stockpile superpowers,” he said heatedly. “And you saw everybody we looked up today—they’re not MMA fighters and Navy SEALS, they’re regular fucking people. What chance do any of them have if a pair of professional assassins comes after them?”

Oh. Yeah, there was that, too. The human element, Five supposed. He always forgot that part.

Allison fell silent, and Vanya drew her knees up to her chest.

“You’re right,” Allison said after a moment. Her fingers knotted in the bedspread. “We can’t let them find anyone else, either.”

Diego swung around to Klaus, who was now clinging to one of Vanya’s shoes like a shipwreck victim who’d found a life raft.

“And what are _you_ doing?” he demanded. “Shoplifting for comfort?”

“I don’t _know,”_ said Klaus. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears.

Diego stepped closer and pulled the lotion away.

“You’re safe,” he told him, tossing it back on the dresser. “Nobody wants to steal your powers, Klaus. They’re, like… bad.”

“Basically the worst,” Luther agreed.

Klaus glanced between them. “You think so?”

“Awful,” Vanya confirmed.

He let out a shaky breath. “Okay. You guys are right. Thanks.”

Allison resumed tapping her foot. “So what are we going to do?” she asked, her face pinched in thought. “We don’t know where Sunny and Noor are. Wyatt’s not talking to Vanya. What’s left?”

Well. Five had an idea. He always had an idea, and this one was a longshot, but… He’d gotten lucky with longshots before.

“I still think Wyatt is our best chance,” he said. “He already broke ranks with Sunny and Noor once—with some prompting, we might be able to get him to do it a second time.”

Vanya spread her hands in supplication. “Five, I tried. I don’t think he’s going to contact me again.”

“But maybe he’d be willing to talk to someone else.” Five offered her a crooked smile. “I can be persuasive, you know.”

“How are you going to find him?” Luther asked.

“I propose we conduct an experiment.” Five looked to Vanya. “Recreate the conditions he first spoke to you under. Maybe it’s just a coincidence that the two of us he picked to contact were you and Klaus, but I’m willing to take a gamble that it isn’t.”

“Could you be more cryptic?” Diego muttered. “I fucking love trying to guess what you’re talking about. It’s my favorite game.”

Five rose from the bed. “I’m talking about drugs, you moron,” he snapped.

Then, to Vanya, “Tell me- do you think Vinny could get us more acid?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don' t like how long this chapter is, but there wasn't a great place to cut it. Next one will be shorter.
> 
> Also, long hair Klaus absolutely looks like a young Charles Manson. His siblings have been very, very kind to not point this out to him.


	9. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Hargreeves fight technology, and Reginald has never been more glad he un-adopted them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait between updates this time. This chapter was originally two chapters, but I thought they were kind of dragging so I combined them as a single mammoth chapter instead.

It was a beautiful, clear spring morning. The birds were chirping, the breeze was fresh, and the Hargreeves were attempting to buy drugs.

“Okay, how’s this?” Vanya brought the phone closer to her face to read the text message she had laboriously typed out. “Dear Vinny, I hope your day is going well so far. This is a strange request, but do you know anyone I could purchase LSD from? I would appreciate your help and your discretion. Thank you, Vanya.”

Klaus was sitting next to her on the sofa, his feet thrown over her lap like a dog who didn’t understand he was too big for that.

“This is the most professional drug deal ever,” he said with approval. “Perfection. Send it.”

Allison paused in pacing back and forth across the rug.

“Or not,” she said. “Still time to back out of this plan, Five. This stupid, stupid plan.”

At the kitchen table, Five gave his coffee a stir. “Do you have a better one?”

Vanya lowered the phone. “Maybe we should wait and see if we think of something?” she suggested with an edge of desperation. “Because… I don’t know, this idea kind of seems like a reach anyway, and I don’t know how Vinny will take it, and if he tells our boss I’ll probably get fired, and—”

Klaus reached over her and pressed a button.

“Sent!”

Allison sighed and resumed pacing.

This was a bad idea. A colossally bad idea. Like, a silverware-in-the-microwave, drink-bleach, grab-a-cop’s-gun kind of bad.

And the worst part was that if it worked, Five was going to be _so goddamn smug_ about it.

She just couldn’t figure out where his head was at, these last few days. They still hadn’t had a group discussion about sideways time-travel and the dangers it presented. He hadn’t brought up math or his equations once. And now here he was, going out of his way to help people they did not know, and would likely never meet.

It was all pretty off-brand for him.

The front door swung open and in trotted a sweaty Diego, with Luther panting after him.

“Hey, hey, hermanos! How was jogging?” Klaus asked. “As terrible as I remember?”

Going for a run was an odd use of their time, maybe, given everything else that was happening, but Allison got it. Luther found comfort in routine, and Diego was not an indoor cat.

Also, as much as she loved them both, it was nice having them be out of the house for a while. Earlier that morning, she had left them washing the dishes together while she went upstairs to shower, and when she’d come back down, there were soapsuds all over the kitchen and Luther had Diego in a headlock.

“Nah, it was good,” Diego said breathlessly. “I won.”

“We weren’t racing,” Luther protested.

Diego saluted him with his water bottle and said, “No one likes a sore loser,” before draining it.

Luther braced against the sofa to stretch, a hangdog look on his face.

“Did Vinny get back to you yet?” Diego asked, wiping water from his mouth. “About the acid?”

“We just sent the message a second ago,” said Vanya.

“Seriously? You were working on it all this time?”

“It’s hard.” She eyed the phone warily. “There’s all these little buttons.”

It chimed in her hand, and she nearly dropped it in surprise. Klaus leaned over her, eager, and Five straightened up in his chair, seeming to hold his breath.

“What did he say?” Klaus asked.

A perplexed frown was spreading across Vanya’s face as she scanned it.

“Uh… L-M-F-A-O-O-O.”

Her gaze flickered from one sibling to the next in search of a hint. “I don’t know what that means.”

Luther swished water around in his mouth thoughtfully before he swallowed. “Must be a typo.”

“Lamfoo.” Diego’s brows knit together. “The fuck was he trying to say? Something about lambs? Or loofahs?”

Five zapped in next to Allison. “Lamfoa,” he said, drawing out each syllable like he was checking to see how they tasted in his mouth. “Maybe it’s a different drug.”

“I don’t know any drugs called lamofo,” Klaus told him. “And I’ve tried like, all of them.”

“Foam?” Luther wondered out loud. “Was he trying to say foam?”

“Or fool.” Diego’s mouth puckered. “Vanya, send him another message and tell him he’s an asshole.”

She clutched the phone to her chest. “No thanks.”

He crossed his arms, huffing in frustration. “Well, I’m not doing it for you. You have to start standing up for yourself sometime.”

Allison rolled her eyes. The obvious solution here was to text back and ask what it meant, but she wasn’t going to be the one to suggest it. _Let_ them start a fight with Vinny. See if he’d get drugs for them then.

The phone chimed again, and Klaus and Vanya cracked their heads together when they both leaned in to see what it said.

“FUCK YOUR MOTHER!” Klaus yelped while Vanya hissed and rubbed at her temple.

“Watch it,” warned Diego.

Klaus sighed, one hand pressed to his forehead. “Sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean it.” He kissed two fingers and raised them to the ceiling. “Rest in robo-peace.”

Allison stooped down to get the phone from where Vanya had dropped it.

 _W8 r u serious,_ the message read.

…Why was he writing like that? Was Vinny having a stroke?

“What’s it say?” Five demanded.

“Uh…here.”

She handed him the phone and he surveyed it with naked distaste. “Looks like _someone_ took Hooked on Phonics too literally,” he observed, then held it back to her. “Tell him yes.”

Allison shook her head. “Nope. I’m not having any part of this. You’re on your own.”

Five’s nostrils flared. “Fine. How do I send a message?”

“Weren’t you paying attention when Vinny showed us?”

Five just glared at her.

With a flounce of her skirt and a laugh, Allison settled down on the sofa on Vanya’s other side.

“Well, you’re the family genius.” She smiled at him. “You figure it out.”

Diego circled around Luther and made a grab for the phone. “Here, I’ll do it.”

“No, wait!” Vanya lunged to stop him. “Don’t call Vinny an asshole!”

“I’m not going to!” Diego told her, holding the phone above her head. “I’m just going to ask what lamafloo is supposed to mean.”

Vanya tickled his armpit, and he jerked away from her with a grunt. “Let me ask him,” she pleaded. “You rub people the wrong way sometimes—”

“What—Who have I _ever_ rubbed the wrong way?!”

At the other end of the sofa, Klaus folded up his legs like he was getting comfortable for a long conversation. “Are you talking recently, or can I use historical examples?”

“We need to work on your hand-to-hand combat skills,” Five commented as he watched Vanya smack ineffectually at Diego’s arm. “You’re not finding your center of gravity.”

In a single stride, Luther was in between them. He removed Diego’s left hand from Vanya’s face, and from his right, plucked the cell phone away, as easily as taking candy from a baby.

In response to the expression on Diego’s face, Allison said, “Nobody likes a sore loser.”

Luther smiled at her as Vanya typed out a response. He looked moved.

Klaus rested his head on Vanya’s shoulder. “So how is this going to work, assuming we can even _get_ acid?” he asked. “Is everybody getting high, or…?”

“I’m not _doing drugs,”_ Diego said, in the tone of voice he might use to say ‘I’m not _setting myself on fire’_ or ‘I’m not _joining a terrorist cell.’_ “And you’re not, either.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Klaus promised, “but I also don’t want to babysit all you guys while you’re blasted. I learned my lesson during Bro Time.”

Vanya glanced up from the phone. “Yeah, I… don’t really want to do acid again, either.”

“Nope,” agreed Allison. “Nope, nope, nope. No drugs for me.”

Luther shifted his weight around. “Well… is acid fun?”

Five pursed his lips while Diego shot Luther a scandalized look. “Whether it’s fun is irrelevant,” he said in clipped tones. “It’s a means to an end. This isn’t a game, it’s a desperate move in a desperate situation.”

“Yeah, and shrooms are way better if you’re in the mood to hallucinate, anyway,” agreed Klaus.

Luther nodded. “Oh, okay. I’ll stay sober, too, I guess.”

The phone made its chiming sound again, and Allison and Klaus pressed closer to Vanya to read the new message.

_Haha wtf im so glad were frends_

“Adult illiteracy,” Klaus marveled. “You never expect to see it in the wild.”

The phone went off again.

_Ill send sum txts and let u kno wats up at the job later. C u 2nite!!_

Allison let her head fall back against the sofa. “Great,” she sighed, while Vanya tapped out a response. “This is really happening.”

Five took a long sip of his coffee, his eyes glittering with satisfaction. “Again, if any of you have a better idea, I’m all ears.”

Diego threw himself into the armchair, which wobbled threateningly, but didn’t break.

“I don’t have a _better_ idea, but that doesn’t make this one any good,” he said. “It’s like if you’re starving to death and the only things you’ve got to eat are a slug or a thumbtack. I’ll take the slug, but I’m not gonna be happy about it.”

Klaus frowned at him. “Where the hell are you that all you have are slugs and thumbtacks?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Like a… a garden shed, or something.”

“Leave the shed and go to a soup kitchen,” suggested Klaus.

“I can’t. I’m locked in.”

“You have a whole shed’s worth of tools and you can’t figure out how to escape?”

Luther took a swig of his water, one eye on Five. “I don’t think it’s that bad of a plan,” he said. “I mean, it sounds pretty crazy, but most of your plans sound crazy, and they usually… Well, I guess they don’t usually work out. But they usually _almost_ work out.”

Five eyed him with suspicion. That was his typical reaction to compliments, Allison was discovering. She imagined he hadn’t gotten many in his life.

“And it’s not like I have anything better,” Luther finished. He shrugged, smiling sheepishly. “The only thing I could think of was asking Dad for help.”

The silence that followed had a precarious element to it. Like a drinking glass teetering on the edge of a table in the seconds before it fell off and shattered.

“Holy shit, the fucking _Sparrow Academy—”_ Diego groaned.

“Oh my God, I forgot they existed for a second,” laughed Klaus. His expression suddenly shifted to open horror as he went rigid in his seat. “Oh my God, Ben might get murdered!”

Allison sat forward. “We have to warn them,” she said, alarmed. “I just— _Wow,_ we really dropped the ball here.”

Luther fiddled with the cap on his water bottle. “Should I have said something earlier?” he asked tentatively.

Five was running his hand through his hair, his face screwed into a scowl. “I doubt there’s much Dad can do for us,” he said. “The Sparrow Academy are all public figures, anyway, so if Sunny and Noor were going to go after them, there’s no reason they couldn’t have done it already. And I’m sure they all have the same training we do—they wouldn’t be easy targets.”

“That’s a lot of words to say ‘I forgot about them, too,’” snapped Diego.

Allison rubbed her hands over her face. “Okay, guys, please don’t do this,” she moaned. “We obviously need to go over there and talk to Dad, but—let’s make a script of what to say first? We don’t need a repeat of what happened in Dallas.”

Diego kicked the leg of his chair, scowling, and Luther’s gaze drifted down to the floor. Klaus wrapped his arms around his knees.

She wasn’t looking forward to seeing their father again, either, but what choice did they have?

Vanya raised the phone. “We could call him,” she suggested.

“Yes!” Klaus snapped his fingers and pointed at her. “That! Let’s do that.”

Allison bit her lower lip. “Yeah. I guess it’s probably the same number.”

Five shoved his free hand into his pocket. “This is a conversation that’s better had in person,” he said. He gestured with his coffee cup. “And you should let me do all the talking—Dad isn’t going to listen to the rest of you.”

As much as it rankled to admit it, he had a point. If Allison was in their father’s shoes, and the same group of fools she’d first encountered ripping off their clothes and blowing up fruit platters called out of the blue to tell her a malicious parakeet was coming for her children, she would probably hang up.

“You mean we’re—we’re going to see him today?” Luther asked, his face paling. “Right now? Before lunch, even?”

“No time like the present,” said Five, sipping his coffee.

Luther worried the bottom of his shirt between his fingers. “But… It’s on the other side of town, and Vanya has work this afternoon, and… Tomorrow?” he asked hopefully. “Can’t we do it tomorrow?”

Allison’s heart panged in sympathy. Poor Luther. He’d always needed some time to gear himself up for the hard things, and what was harder than this? She couldn’t begrudge him a day to mentally prepare to face Dad again. Jesus, she wouldn’t mind one herself.

It seemed everyone else agreed—Diego unclenched in his seat, and Klaus loosened his death grip on his knees.

Vanya held the phone up. “It’s ringing,” she announced.

“What do—Did you call him? We don’t know what we’re going to say yet!” Allison protested, while Luther smoothed his hair back in an apparent desire to look professional for this phone call.

“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to visit today!”

“We did, but we didn’t agree to _this!”_

“Okay, okay, just—” After a second of floundering panic, Vanya hit a button, and the ringing became audible. “There.”

“Putting it on speaker doesn’t help us, Linda!”

“Thank you for calling the Sparrow Academy,” a chirpy digital voice said. “If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911. If you are a member of the media, and you would like to request an interview, please press or say ‘one.’ If you are—”

Diego looked at the phone askance. “Uh… Is this that green box talking to us?”

The voice stopped.

“I’m sorry,” it said after a second, “I didn’t understand that. If you are a member of the media, and you would like to request an interview, please press or say—"

Five stepped closer to the phone. “I need to talk to Reginald Hargreeves,” he said loudly. “Put him on.”

“I’m sorry,” said the voice, “I didn’t understand that. If you are a member of the media—"

Five’s face darkened into a scowl. “Reginald. _Hargreeves,”_ he enunciated with biting scorn. “The person who built you. This is Five Hargreeves, and I need to speak to him.”

“You have selected option five, licensing and merchandising inquiries,” the voice informed him happily. “Is that correct?”

 _“No_ it isn’t fucking correct!”

There was a pause.

“If you are a member of the media—"

“Wait, wait.” Klaus scrambled over Vanya to speak into the phone while Five balled his hands into fists. _“Sir_ Reginald Hargreeves. That’s who we want to speak to, please.”

Diego leaned forward out of the armchair. “Put him on in the next thirty seconds or we’re coming over there in person,” he threatened. “He doesn’t want that. Nobody wants that.”

“Guys,” said Vanya. “I think this is a recording.”

“Yeah, we’ll talk to his new kids and tell them how much better it is to have your own place than to live with your parents,” Klaus added, always happy to jump onto a dogpile.

“We’ll tell them there’s no point in stopping bank robbers,” said Diego. “Banks have insurance for that shit, they aren’t helping _anybody.”_

Luther took a step backwards. “Wait, what?” he asked. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah. I looked it up.”

His mouth parted in shock while Klaus hugged his knees again.

“Our whole lives have been a lie,” he told his feet.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that.”

Five threw his hands up in frustration.

Allison scooted forward and said into the phone, “Can we leave a message?”

A brief pause, and then—“If you would like to leave a message, please press or say ‘six.’”

“Could have told us that earlier, dumbass,” Diego called at the phone while Vanya hit the button.

There was a beep, and just like that, they were live.

None of them spoke for a second. Then Vanya whetted her lips and said hesitantly, “Uh… Hello. This message is for Reginald Hargreeves. We’re…”

She trailed off, apparently unsure _who_ they were.

“Team Zero,” Diego supplied at the same time Allison said, “The other Hargreeves family.”

Klaus leaned in. “Your ex-children,” he said into the phone.

Five made a growling noise low in his throat and snatched for it. “Jesus, _give_ me that.”

He straightened up, eyes piercing as he brought it to his ear.

“This is Number Five speaking,” he said briskly, “and there’s something vitally important we need to discuss with you. I realize you’re not in the habit of returning calls from people you think are beneath you, but if you don’t, the Sparrow Academy is going to be in grave danger. The choice is yours.”

It was one of those moments that sent a chill down Allison’s spine. When Five was at his most competent and compelling and she remembered that, cracking voice and knobbly knees aside, he was the most dangerous person she knew.

So it was all the more disheartening when his brow creased and he added, “That sounds like a threat, but it’s not a threat. It’s—If any harm comes to them, it’ll be because of an… unrelated third party. Unrelated to us, I mean. But that was implied.”

He paused, frowning. “Goodbye,” he finished abruptly, and hung up.

Judging by the look on his face, he was well aware that he had just shot himself in the foot (proverbially), and was considering shooting someone else in the foot to self-medicate (literally).

Klaus flopped over the arm of the couch. “Well, _he’s_ not calling us back.”

“How could he?” Diego asked sourly. “We didn’t give him our number.”

Five bristled. “This is why I wanted to meet face-to-face,” he snapped, like it was Diego’s fault.

Vanya gently took the phone from his hand and began punching buttons. “It’s fine,” she soothed. “We’ll just leave another message. No big deal.”

As the recording started up again with its cheery robotic greeting, Luther shuffled closer to the sofa.

“Wait,” he said. “Let’s write down exactly what we’re going to say first, maybe?”

The voice cut off.

Vanya hunched her shoulders up around her ears guiltily. “Ah… I… already pressed six.”

Allison let her eyes flutter closed with a sigh.

Sometimes she wished she could rumor herself into sleeping for a month straight.

{}{}{}{}{}

Vanya stepped off the bus, Five on her heels as faithfully as a shadow.

She would have preferred riding the bike, but he insisted she needed an escort to work and back for safety, so public transit it was.

“Now what?” she asked as they cut through the diner’s alleyway. “Are you going to turn around and go back home?”

“No.” Five pulled the appointment book out of the pocket of his blazer and tapped it. “I’m going to the library for a bit to look up some more of these names. If I find anyone local, they’re likely to be the first target.”

“Oh.” Vanya stepped over a dead squirrel on the ground. It had been there more than a week, because no one could agree whose job it was to clean it up. Then one of the dishwashers had named it Robby Roadkill, and now it was an unofficial mascot of sorts. “That’s a good idea.”

“All my ideas are good ideas.” Five angled his head at her and shot her a smile. “For example—right now, I think you should buy me a cup of coffee.”

The lunch rush was in full swing, which meant the diner currently had two entire customers.

“How does this place stay open?” Five asked as he put the book on the counter and hopped into a seat. “It’s fucking grim in here.”

Vanya ducked under the barrier to get into the serving area and began pouring him a cup of dark roast. “Vinny thinks it’s a front for something,” she said, “but I don’t ask.”

She set the coffee down in front of him. “None of my business.”

“Mm.” He took a sip. “As long as the checks keep clearing, huh?”

“Well. I get paid in cash. But something like that, sure.”

Five set his cup down. “Speaking of Vinny,” he said, “has he sent you any updates?”

Vanya glanced nervously down the counter. An auburn-haired girl was sitting there, too engrossed in her reading to pay them any mind, but it was still a risk she wasn’t willing to take.

“No.” She leaned in to Five. “His shift starts later, but—we can’t talk about this here.”

He made a point of looking around the empty diner. “You’re right,” he said flatly. “What was I thinking.”

“Five.”

“And in such a upscale establishment, too.”

_“Five.”_

“How did security even let me through the door? I don’t think I meet the dress code.”

Vanya swatted his hand. “Oh my God, finish your coffee and go.”

He did, smirking. “Once again, the customer service here is just shocking.”

Vanya shook her head as he pushed his cup aside and tucked the book back into his pocket. Once he had himself together, he paused for a moment and regarded her over the counter.

If he was someone softer, Vanya thought, or maybe if she was someone bolder, this would be the time she would hug him goodbye. But they were who they were, and so she did not.

“Have a good shift,” he said. “Don’t leave until I’m here to get you.”

Then, to her wonderment, he leaned over to give her shoulder a squeeze.

Vanya stared down at his hand, flummoxed. “Uh… sure.”

She watched his retreating form sweep out the door with a gnawing sense of unease.

…Why did she get the feeling he wasn’t really going to the library?

{}{}{}{}{}

Diego leapt out of his seat so violently the chair toppled over behind him.

“That little motherfucker is going to see Dad without us!”

“Oh, shit. You think so?” Luther lowered his sandwich and frowned off into the distance for a moment, his gaze pensive.

Then he shrugged and took another bite. “I’m fine with that.”

“Yeah.” Klaus tossed a grape into the air and tried to catch it with his mouth, but it bounced off his nose and rolled away under the patio table. “Better him than me, I say.”

They had just sat down outside for lunch. Diego had asked where Five was, and Klaus said he planned to escort Vanya to work and then head over to the library. It was a very reasonable explanation, and Diego wasn’t buying it for a single fucking second.

“There’s nothing ‘better’ about it if he took the book with him!” Diego leaned forward to slam his palms on the table, his eyes roaming over each of their faces. “Dad can’t know about that thing. What’s the fucking point of protecting all the people in it from Sunny and Noor if we’re just going to let _him_ go harass them next?”

Allison crossed her legs and took a sip of her iced tea. “I’m not in love with the idea of Five running off to see him without telling us first, either, but I doubt Dad would hurt anyone,” she said. “He’s not a serial killer. He’s just an asshole.”

“You don’t know that,” Diego protested hotly. “There’s _tons_ of unsolved murders.”

Luther sighed, brushing crumbs off his lap. “Five was right that he’s the only one of us Dad would listen to, Diego.” He sounded resigned to this fact, if not quite resentful of it. “Let him handle it how he thinks is best.”

Diego could hear in his voice that there was going to be no persuading him. After all the years at his side and suffering at his hands, it seemed Luther was finally out of fucks to give about Reginald Hargreeves.

More power to him, Diego decided. Even if it wasn’t helpful at the moment.

He turned to Klaus and Allison instead. “What if _he_ decides to go out and steal powers, then?” he demanded. “Get his new kids some more abilities?”

Allison’s brows raised like she was thinking about it, but Klaus threw a grape at Diego’s face.

“Dad’s not going to do that,” he said dismissively. “Open your food hole so I can work on my aim.”

Luther made a face and set down his sandwich. “Please stop calling mouths ‘food holes,’” he begged. “It sounds so gross.”

Allison rested her elbows on the table. “What makes you say that?” she asked Klaus.

He shrugged. “He always treated us like science experiments,” he said. “And if there’s one thing I know about science experiments, it’s that you need to control your variables. He wouldn’t do anything that might mess up his superkiddies.”

Diego exchanged a glance with Luther. In spite of Klaus’s… everything, he had surprisingly astute insights into human nature sometimes. It was always nice to be reminded that he wasn’t a _total_ idiot.

Klaus squinted at Allison and tossed a grape straight into her cleavage.

“Well, anything that might mess them up power-wise,” he amended as she fished it out, seething. “Psychologically, I’m sure it’s still open season.”

Diego scowled around the table. “Look, we can argue about what Dad would or wouldn’t do with the book all day, but I’m not giving him a chance to prove me wrong. I’m going after Five. You’re all welcome to join me.”

Luther licked peanut butter off his thumb. Klaus hit himself in the eye with a grape. Allison stirred her drink with her straw, seemingly on the fence.

Diego bit back a slew of curses. He didn’t know how many more people like them were out there—maybe fifty, or five, or maybe none at all—but he felt a fierce, inexplicable protectiveness for them anyway. Like they were distant relatives he’d never met, and he needed to warn them that their cousins Noor and Wyatt were a big bundle of drama before they RSVP’d ‘yes’ to the family reunion.

Besides. Saving people was what he did best.

“We should make sure Five has back-up, too,” he added stiffly. “In case Dad tries any of his shit. The last time _I_ was alone with him, I got stabbed.”

After a moment of internal debate, Allison set her drink down. “Alright,” she sighed. “You win. Let’s go.”

Luther stirred in his seat. “Yeah,” he agreed, sounding miserable. “We should. For Five’s sake.”

“We don’t all need to be there,” Allison pointed out. “Probably better for at least one of us to stay here, actually.”

He perked up. “True,” he agreed, latching on to the idea eagerly. “I’ll do that.”

Diego looked to Klaus, who squirmed in his chair. “I’ll go if you really want,” he said, drawing the words out in preparation for a big ‘but.’ “But I don’t think I made a _great_ first impression, and if history has taught us anything, it’s that Dad actually likes me less the more he gets to know me, and also my horoscope said it’s a bad day for me to conduct business, and I have a blister on my foot, and—”

“Just say you don’t want to go,” Diego interrupted, annoyed. “Just say the words, Klaus. That’s all you have to do.”

“I don’t want to go. Further excuses available upon request.”

Diego turned away, rolling his eyes. “If we’re not back in four hours, we’re probably being held hostage, so go get Vanya and come find us.”

“Or don’t, because that’s not going to happen,” Allison said as she got to her feet.

“Or do, because it might.”

“Five may not even be there. He could really be at the library.”

“Five is at Dad’s,” Diego told her in a slow, warning tone that just dared her to argue, “and there is a greater than zero percent chance we’re about to go do combat against our father.”

Allison flashed him an over-bright smile that showed her teeth. “I can already tell this is going to be a _super_ fun afternoon.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Vanya leaned against the wall in the alleyway behind the diner, picking anxiously at her fingernails.

She’d had a bad feeling about this whole ‘let’s do acid to contact Wyatt’ thing from the start, and as the moment of truth drew closer, it was only intensifying.

That happened to her a lot. Things would kinda-sorta make sense at home, and then when she got to work, she’d realize that they were objectively insane. Like Diego attempting to booby-trap their front door, or Klaus and Allison getting into such a heated debate about what caramel was made of they didn’t speak for two full days. It was almost like they all fed off of each other’s neuroses or something.

Or, maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe she was being dramatic. But there was no one she could reveal the full truth to in order to get some outside perspective, and Robby Roadkill wasn’t much of a talker.

The backdoor opened, and Vinny bounded out. He locked eyes with her.

There was a dramatic pause, and then, with all the showmanship of a magician asking if _this_ was your card, he reached into his pocket and whipped out a plastic baggie.

“Got ‘em!”

She let out a breath. Well. She had bought her ticket on the S.S. Bad Idea, and now the ship was leaving port with her reluctantly aboard.

“Thanks, Vinny.”

“Oh, man, no problem.” He hopped off the stoop, plunging his hand back into his apron to swap the bag out for his cigarettes. “You don’t know how hyped I am for this—I haven’t dropped acid in a _minute._ When are we doing it, anyway?”

“Uh… We?”

Vinny took a drag and blew the smoke skyward. “Me, you, and my wife,” he said. “I got some for each of us, so I’m thinking you come over to our house on an afternoon we all have off, and we’ll get high and play Mario Kart.”

Oh. That certainly sounded like… a time. Vanya opened her mouth, an objection on her lips, but Vinny was steaming on ahead without her.

“Mario Kart is a video game, and—Wait, do you know what video games are?” He waved his cigarette in an excited arc. “Know what, fuck it, it’s probably better if you go in blind. Oh my God, I can’t _wait._ You’re gonna flip.”

“Vinny,” Vanya cut in. “I’m not doing acid. It’s for my brother.”

“…Oh.” His enthusiasm wilted like day-old lettuce. “The tall, skinny one? With the long hair?”

She made a puzzled face at him, and he shrugged. “He looked like the type.”

It had to be a gift, Vanya reflected, that Vinny’s assumptions could be so off-base, yet also so correct.

“Yeah,” she said. “He wanted to try it, I guess. I said I’d ask for him.”

He slouched against the wall next to her. “Well, he can come over, too, if he feels like it,” he offered. “Probably shouldn’t get high around the little guy, anyways.”

“No.” She shuffled her feet awkwardly. “No, we…. wouldn’t want that.”

Vinny held his cigarette in the corner of his mouth and retrieved the baggie from his apron. With two fingers, he conducted a fiddly operation to remove a pair of small yellow squares and fold the scrap of tinfoil that had come in the bag around them.

“Okay,” he said, after he’d pocketed the rest. “These are yours. Tell your brother to stay hydrated, and if he starts freaking out, make him stare at a clock.”

“Will do.” Vanya accepted them from his hand. “Thanks again, Vinny. I owe you one.”

“Anytime. But hey, listen.”

He stepped forward to grip her shoulder, his gaze penetrating.

Apprehension trickled through Vanya’s stomach. This was it, she realized. This was the favor for which he was going to ask something in return.

“If you change your mind,” he told her, in a tone of utmost seriousness, “just let me know. Driving down Rainbow Road while you’re tripping is like meeting God, Vee. You have no idea what you’re missing.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Klaus and Luther stood at opposite ends of the kitchen table, grim twin guardians of the awful thing between them.

“I did _not_ think he’d call us back,” Luther said, eyes glued to the phone.

“Me neither.”

“I guess we should answer.”

“Guess so.”

The phone vibrated impatiently on the table. Luther’s gaze slid up to meet Klaus’s, and he saw his own quiet panic reflected back at him in wide, green eyes.

He inhaled through his nose. “Listen,” he said, with more confidence than he felt, “I’ll put it on speaker, and we’ll both talk to him.”

Then, a bit pathetically, “Just… promise you won’t take off and leave me to deal with him alone, okay?”

“As long as _you_ promise you won’t put all the blame on me when this inevitably turns ugly, you have yourself a deal.”

Luther extended a hand. Klaus took it. They shook. Both of their palms were slippery.

The phone was sounding downright angry by then, so Luther hit the button to pick up the call as Klaus leaned down on the table on his elbows.

“He-e-e-e-y, Papa Bear,” he said in greeting.

For a moment, there was the staticky sound of silence on the other end.

“I would ask to whom I’m speaking,” their father’s cold voice said, “but I believe I already know.”

Luther gripped the back of one of the kitchen chairs, just to have something solid to hold onto. “It’s Klaus and Luther,” he said. “Uh… Thanks for returning our call.”

It was only polite to thank him. He’d never had manners feel this bad before, it was true, but he’d led a pretty sheltered life.

Their father—Reginald?—made a derisive sound. “It is against my own better judgement that I’ve done so,” he said drily. “I’ll grant you two minutes of my time to explain this nonsense. I could scarcely make heads or tails of the messages I received through the incoherent babbling.”

Luther and Klaus exchanged a glance. If he thought _Five_ was an incoherent babbler, they were both fucked.

“Well,” Klaus started haltingly, “we, uh. It turns out that there are more people with superpowers. Like what we have. You probably knew that already, though. You’ve always been a, um… a…”

He moved a hand in a circle as he searched for the term he wanted. “… I want to say ‘mad scientist,’ but that’s not it.”

“They’re not friendly,” Luther jumped in. “They’re aggressive, actually, and dangerous, and we… we have reason to believe that they’re targeting other people like us.”

Klaus flashed him a thumbs up, and Luther smiled. That had sounded pretty good, hadn’t it?

“You have reason to believe they’re targeting people like you,” their father repeated. He sounded wholly unimpressed. “I don’t suppose you would care to share what this reason is.”

Klaus shifted his weight back and forth between his legs, looking as flustered as Luther felt, and they started speaking over each other.

“Because—So there’s three of them that we know of, but there might be more, and… Okay, so one can turn into birds?”

“Do you mean what’s the reason they’re targeting us? Or what’s the reason we think that?”

“Just one bird, I mean, not like a whole flock of birds—”

“Sorry, I—It just wasn’t clear. What you meant.”

“Maybe they can turn into a flock of birds, too, though. I don’t know. A murder. Of crows. Seems fitting.” Klaus drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “… Where was I going with this?”

“Three hostiles, one with the ability to transform into an animal,” their father recapped impatiently.

Luther, as off-balance as he was at the moment, raised his eyebrows. It almost sounded like he was… interested.

“Speak clearly and one at a time,” he went on. “You have two minutes, starting now.”

Jesus. He’d reset the clock for them and everything. He _was_ interested.

For the first time, Luther realized with awe, they had power over their father. Because for the first time, they knew something that he didn’t. It was a heady feeling.

The knot of anxiety in his chest unraveled itself.

“We’ll answer your questions,” he said, voice steady, heart racing. “But first, we need you to answer some of ours.”

Klaus was staring at him with the kind of mingled terror and respect usually reserved for watching something like a guy jumping a flaming motorcycle over a school bus.

Luther straightened up. Raised his chin.

“Tell me,” he said to the phone, “do you know anything about exchanging superpowers between two people?”

{}{}{}{}{}

Diego’s right leg was jiggling.

They had taken the bus to its terminal stop, and then got on a different bus headed uptown, and then they’d hopped on the subway, and he had jiggled all the way.

Allison shifted in her seat, careful not to bump the shopping bags the woman one seat over had piled between them.

“You okay?” she asked him.

His head jerked in a nod, eyes fixed straight ahead. “Yeah.”

“I’m nervous, too.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“This won’t be like Dallas, okay? If he starts getting nasty, we’ll stick up for each other.”

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

Allison smoothed her skirt over her knees as she cast around for what to say. Diego had always been so sensitive to embarrassment, and she hadn’t helped, last time. Something about it, about being all together in Dad’s presence, sent her right back to childhood.

Too bad she’d spent her childhood being a little bitch.

“If one of us makes a fool of ourselves,” she told Diego, “I’ll rumor him to forget about it.”

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “What about Five?” he asked gruffly.

“I’m not rumoring Five.” She paused. “We can threaten to tell everybody he cried unless he keeps his mouth shut.”

“No one would believe that.”

“Sure they would.” Allison smiled at him. “Would I lie?”

Diego grunted and leaned back in his seat. “You’re fucking dumb,” he muttered, but the jiggling had stopped.

Allison hummed in satisfaction. Being a little bitch had its place.

{}{}{}{}{}

“In theory,” said Dad, “it may be possible to pass your abilities to a different host. My research indicates they function much like a form of energy—under the right circumstances, and with the correct impetus, it might well be possible to transfer that energy to another organism.”

Klaus looked to Luther for a translation. He’d always been good at science, a character flaw that was finally coming in handy.

He nodded, his face pinched in thought. “And energy is conserved,” he said slowly, “so if someone with superpowers was to die…”

“I expect that would be the right circumstance, yes.”

Ooh. They’d already guessed that was how it worked, but hearing Dad confirm it made the hairs on Klaus’s arms stand on end.

He made a silent vow that if anyone killed him and took his powers, he was going to be the most obnoxious ghost the world had ever known. As loud and persistent as all the screamers, and as judgmental of their life choices as Ben.

“I gather that is the goal of these other superhumans you’ve found,” Dad continued. “Or you believe it is.”

He sounded so civil. It was spooky.

“Yeah,” Klaus said next to the phone. “It’s a long story, but we’re pretty sure. Anyway, I’m counting that as your question, so now here’s our next one—how did you find all your wunderkinder?”

Luther shook his head and mouthed ‘No,’ at him, but Klaus ignored it. Was the answer relevant to their purposes? Not very. Was he deeply curious to hear it anyhow? YES very.

On the other end, their father laughed once, and without humor. Klaus had never heard him laugh before, he didn’t think. It reminded him of a clap of thunder.

“Time and money,” he said in a wry tone. “A great deal of both. And that is all I’m going to say on the matter. Tell me what you’ve learned about these three people with superpowers.”

Luther proceeded to give him a somewhat disjointed explanation about the telepath, and the shapeshifter, and Sunny, who might not be anything special at all, but who was wrapped up in the whole shit burrito with them anyway.

Each time he got close to revealing too much information, Klaus would signal him to stop talking—they needed to keep _some_ details close to their chests, no matter how annoyed Daddy Dearest was getting.

“—and Noor—that’s the shapeshifter—broke into our house again while Allison and Vanya were here by themselves and attacked them. But we don’t think that’s what they came here to—”

Klaus made a slashing motion at his neck, and Luther shut up post haste. They were getting dangerously close to ‘by the way, someone made a handy-dandy reference guide to super people’ territory here.

Dad made a frustrated noise. “I fail to see why you’re so certain they intend to rob you of your abilities,” he said testily, “unless there’s something you aren’t telling me.”

They looked at each other.

Klaus wished Five was here. That was one of the running themes of his life, really—wishing Five was around, and then when he arrived, wishing he’d go away again. Or at least take a Xanax or something.

“There… there is something,” Luther said after a moment. “But we’re not _going_ to tell you, so I guess you’ll have to take our word for it.”

“And why,” their father asked, his voice as brittle as ice and twice as cold, “would I do that?”

Luther set his jaw. “The better question is why you wouldn’t,” he said. “Everything else we’ve told you so far has been on the money.”

Klaus smiled at him in admiration. His ape body must not have ended at the waist after all, because he sure had some gorilla-sized balls on him.

“The only reason we’re coming to you with this anyway is so you can keep B—” Luther scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Keep the Sparrow Academy safe.”

Dad didn’t answer right away. Klaus could just picture him sitting at his desk, fuming. Plotting.

“Perhaps the six of you need coddling,” he said, “but I can assure you that my students do not. They are perfectly capable of defending themselves, should the need arise.”

Luther leaned down over the phone. “But you’re going to tell them everything we just told you,” he said urgently. “Right?”

“You haven’t told me much of anything.”

“But we did!” Luther insisted. “We told you your kids are in danger! What more do you need to know?”

“A full explanation would be a start,” Dad said smoothly. “Perhaps providing evidence. I _am_ a stickler for it, as you may recall.”

What kind of parent, Klaus wondered, would try using his children’s safety as a bargaining chip? What kind of parent wouldn’t rush off to do a headcount straight away, and set a strict curfew, and when his kids pushed back on it because they were adults and they didn’t need his permission to go out, _Dad_ , tell them it was only because he cared?

The kind of parent they’d been raised by, he supposed. He and Luther were more worried about his family than he was, and they didn’t even know them.

Klaus stooped down.

“Me again!” he chirped at the phone. “So, listen, what you want to do with all the stuff we just told you is up to you. I think you should at least give everybody a heads’ up, but I can’t force you.”

He braced his palms against the table.

“What I _can_ do is summon the dead. They’re everywhere, and they see everything, and I have a hunch there are plenty of angry ghosties who have a bone to pick with Reginald Hargreeves. I also have a hunch they’d be happy to point me towards all the full explanations and evidence a stickler could want, so…”

He shrugged amicably. “Pick your poison.”

There was a long, fraught silence.

“Very well,” Reginald said flatly.

Klaus pretended to buff his nails against his shirt as Luther mouthed a reverent ‘Holy shit’ at him.

“I shall take precautions. However, I’ll not allow you to think that—”

Luther tilted his head in confusion at the sudden cut off, but their father’s attention was clearly otherwise occupied.

 _“You,”_ he barked away from the phone. “What on _earth_ do you think you’re doing?”

{}{}{}{}{}

The walk to the Academy had been very, very long, but it had given Five ample time to plan out a course of attack.

He’d decided on what tone he should take as he cut across a park. He had gotten his speech down pat while traveling through the financial district. He had considered what questions he’d be willing to answer as he paused to buy a hotdog from a street vendor, and he’d fretted over how much time would be left to get to the library as a police officer stopped him to ask why he wasn’t in school.

He would have liked to send Allison or maybe Luther off to do more research into the appointment book while he talked to their father, but it would have been a fight to convince everyone it was best for him to handle this solo. There was probably still going to _be_ a fight once he got home and told them.

But, he thought as he made his way up the Academy’s steps, the adage was true—it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission. He rang the bell.

An intercom by the door beeped to life.

“Welcome to the Sparrow Academy,” an electronic voice said. “How may I assist you?”

Five frowned. Was everything in this place automated? It had to be like living in the front end of a sci-fi novel. _Before_ the robots revolted.

“I’m here to see Reginald Hargreeves,” he said.

“Sir Reginald is available by appointment only,” the voice said cheerfully. “If you would like to arrange one—”

Five jumped to his father’s office before it could finish.

It looked just like he remembered. The oak desk with its ornate carvings, the high-backed chair, the portrait frowning its disapproval over the entire space. Dad glaring at him.

 _“You,”_ he said. “What on _earth_ do you think you’re doing?”

“Nice to see you again, too.” Five zapped into one of the chairs in front of the desk and crossed a leg over his knee. “Go ahead and put your call on hold. This will only take a few minutes of your time.”

To his satisfaction, his father’s face spasmed into something resembling a melted Halloween mask.

“Put my call on—I have a better idea.” He set the hand piece down on his desk and hit a button on the base, regarding Five with frosty contempt. “We’re on speaker. Say hello to your brothers.”

“…What?”

“Five?” a tinny voice called from the phone. “Is that you?”

_“Luther?”_

There was a rush of static as someone breathed into the phone on the other end. “And Klaus!”

Five ran a hand through his hair. This was perfect. Living poetry. He could spend hours or days or decades, even, coming up with the perfect plan, refining all the details, developing back-ups for any contingency, and then his siblings would blow it to shit in ten seconds. Story of his life.

“Dad—I mean, _Reginald,_ called us back,” Luther said, somewhat unnecessarily.

“Yeah,” Klaus jumped in. “We told him everything he needs to know already and he’s going to pass it on to the Sparrows, so we don’t need to show him the, um. The b-o-o-k.”

“You _do_ realize I have the ability to spell,” their father snapped.

“What are you talking about?” Five asked in frustration. “I wasn’t ever going to show him that.”

Dad folded his hands on the desk. “Is this the missing link you’re so determined to keep from me?” he asked. “A book?”

“It’s not even important,” Five lied. “Total red herring. I think I threw it away.”

Their father’s eyes narrowed to slits.

Luther was making an awkward hemming sound on the other end. “Well, uh… So the thing is, there was some confusion on our end about… what exactly you were doing, and Diego had some concerns, and—”

“HEY! HEY, REGINALD!”

Five twisted around in confusion towards the window.

“THIS IS ME MAKING AN APPOINTMENT, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! COME OUT HERE AND FACE ME LIKE A MAN!”

Oh, God.

He jumped across the room and peered outside. Diego was there in the middle of the street, arms akimbo and a knife at the ready, while Allison stood six feet away with her face buried in her hands.

He pointed a furious finger up at Five. “YOU!” he yelled. “I’M PISSED AT YOU, TOO!”

“Diego,” Allison cried, “when I told you I’d take care of it if one of us made ourselves look bad, I didn’t mean you should do it on purpose.”

Five struggled to open the window. “Will you shut up?” he snarled, heaving ineffectually at the frame. “You aren’t helping anything, you moron.”

“WHAT? OPEN THE WINDOW, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

“I’m trying!”

“WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? OPEN THE WINDOW, DUMBASS!”

Five gave up and flipped him the middle finger through the glass. Diego gasped in offense.

“What’s going on?” Klaus’s voice was asking through the phone. “Is that Diego and Allison?”

“Yes,” their father told him.

He was sitting perfectly calm in his chair, an almost bored expression on his face. Five wished he could mentally check out of this situation with the same ease.

“Man, this whole thing has spiraled _right_ out of control, huh?” Klaus mused. “We should probably start, like… communicating with each other. It’s kind of—Oh, wait, we’re getting another call.”

“Is that Vanya?” Luther asked in the background. “I think that’s the diner’s number.”

“YO! FIVE! COME BACK OVER HERE, I’M NOT DONE YELLING AT YOU!”

“I suppose this is where we say goodbye, then,” their father said, monotone. “I am overcome by disappointment.”

“No, no—lemme just—”

There were a series of beeps, then silence. 

“Uh… hello?” Vanya’s voice floated through the phone.

“Vanny!” Klaus said eagerly. “Oh my God, you’ll never guess who’s on the other line.”

Five’s eyes widened. Did Klaus not mean to set up a three-way call?

“It’s Dad, and me and Luther totally made him our bitch!” Klaus said with glee. “Mostly Luther, but also me.”

“It was a team effort,” Luther said humbly. “He’s both of our bitch now.”

“We can hear all of you,” Five announced as their father shook his head.

“Oh, _shit—”_

“Five?” Vanya asked, sounding thoroughly bewildered. “Is that you? I was just calling to let you know I got the… stuff, but I don’t think I’m going to make enough tips to cover it today. So, if you could bring some money from home…”

“Sure,” he said hastily. “Money for the dishes we were buying. Of course.”

“What?” Her voice dropped lower. “Five, I meant for the acid.”

“FIVE HARGREEVES, YOU COME BACK TO THE WINDOW RIGHT FUCKING NOW OR I’M GOING HOME AND TELLING EVERYBODY DAD MADE YOU CRY.”

“Is that Diego?” Luther asked, mystified. “Are you crying? What’s wrong?”

“I’m talking about drugs,” Vanya whispered.

Five closed his eyes. If he hadn’t just stopped two Apocalypses to save them, he would kill each and every one of his siblings with his bare hands.

“I’ll be there with the money,” he said shortly. “Goodbye.”

“But are you okay? Why are you cry—” Luther started, but Five had already jumped to the desk and hung the phone up.

He raised his head to face his father. For a long moment, they just looked at each other across the desk.

“I apologize for all of this.”

“Get the hell out of my house,” Dad said. It was the most polite Five had ever heard him.

He took half a step backwards in preparation to jump. “We’ll be in touch,” he said, and then blinked outside.

“SOMEBODY OPEN THIS WINDOW OR I’M THROWING A BRICK STRAIGHT—”

Diego started when Five popped in directly in front of him, his eyes turning wary as he drank in the expression on his face.

“I’ll give you a three second lead to start running,” Five growled.

{}{}{}{}{}

The smell of cleaning solvent pierced the air like something sharp as Sunny worked the pipe brush through the barrel of her gun.

Light flickered from the television, playing on mute in the background. The word ‘murder’ in the closed captioning caught her eye, and she looked up—but the victim was an old man. She resumed cleaning.

The electronic lock on the door beeped, and Noor stepped into the hotel room a second later.

“You’re back,” they said after a pause. “Finally.”

“Sorry,” Sunny said, sparing half a second to glance over. “It took longer than I was expecting.”

Noor was female just then, an angular redhead who was all elbows and knees. They crossed the room and dropped into the armchair with a kind of slouchy confidence that was at odds with the youth of the body they’d picked.

“You found her, then?” they asked with no real interest. “The Handler’s mini-me?”

Sunny nodded, and set the gun down on the nightstand to dry. “London, 1989.”

Noor stuttered out a laugh. _“Jesus.”_

“I know. I tried to warn her off, but…” She shrugged before turning her attention to the magazine, which was disassembled on a towel next to her on the bed. “She wants to see who her birth parents were. Can’t fault her for that, I reckon.”

“Maybe you can’t.” Noor stretched out their legs. “I’m find it pretty easy, myself.”

Sunny shrugged again as she began fitting the spring back into its casing. “She didn’t seem to know anything, but I didn’t push it too hard. Better she stays there for the time being, anyhow, out of harm’s way.”

Noor ran their tongue across their upper teeth, watching her calculatingly.

“Speaking of harm’s way,” they said, “they found the book.”

Sunny’s gaze snapped up. “You’re sure?”

“Uh-huh. I just came from the diner Number Seven works at—Five was with her, and I saw him put it in his pocket. Tried to follow him, but, you know.”

Noor snapped their fingers. “…And he’s gone.”

Sunny tapped the spring against her hand, deep in thought. “How long have they had it?”

“Can’t really say.” Noor crossed their legs. “I should probably let you know that shit kind of came unglued while you were gone.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well!” They settled into the seat. “A couple days ago, Number Five finally left the house. All the menfolk did, as a matter of fact, so I figured I’d run in and get the book while defenses were low—”

Sunny raised her eyebrows. “By yourself? _Noor.”_

They shrugged. “I had a plan. It fell apart pretty much the moment I got there, I’ll admit, but I did have one. Number Three saw my gun, and there was a bit of a brawl—”

“A bit of brawl.”

“Yeah, just a bit. A baby brawl. A brawl junior. Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Noor waved a bored hand in dismissal. “And then Wyatt popped up like a boner in church and threw me under the fucking bus—haven’t heard from his dumb ass in two days now, by the way—so my cover is totally blown, and I can’t get close enough to them anymore to figure out what’s going on.”

They fixed Sunny with a coy look. “Aren’t you glad you have my help?”

She sighed, pressing two fingers to her forehead. “It’s fine,” she said wearily. “Things happen. Could’ve done without you going into their house with no backup, but it’s fine.”

“Yeah.” Noor rapped their knuckles against the arm of the chair. “Don’t ever tell anyone I said this, but—My bad.”

“They’re dangerous. They could have killed you.” The lines around Sunny’s mouth softened as she gazed at them. “I can’t do this without you, Noor.”

“No worries.” They gave their long, red hair a toss. “If I die, I’ll just turn into someone who’s still alive.”

“Why don’t you try turning into someone who thinks you’re funny?”

“I can’t. I don’t know what your mom looks like.”

They smiled at each other.

“Did Five and Seven talk about the book at all?” Sunny asked. She pulled a box of bullets from the drawer in the nightstand and began loading them. “Did you get any hints what’s in it?”

Noor shook their head. “No. Still don’t have a clue.”

“Right.”

Sunny picked up her gun and slid the magazine back into place with a decisive click.

"Nothing to do but wait, then."


	10. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Five tunes in, turns on, and freaks out. (Part One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's High Five! 
> 
> That is a very funny joke and you should be laughing now, thank you.

Five sat cross-legged on his bed, staring down at the two yellow paper tabs in front of him.

He’d been all ready to take them last night, but the popular vote had been against him. Acid trips lasted for ages and kept you awake, Klaus said, so he should go into it well-rested—and besides, Vanya had pointed out, Wyatt had never spoken to _her_ in the dead of night. He was probably sleeping himself. He probably had a job to get to the next day. He would probably not appreciate being woken up.

And so it was that Five found himself at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, fifty-eight years of age, and about to do drugs for the first time in his life.

There was a knock at the door, and then, in typical fashion, Klaus let himself in without waiting for a response.

“There’s our little burnout!” he said, diving onto the bed across from him. “Ready to hallucinate, Lebowski?”

Five held back a sigh. “Are you here for a reason, or are you just rubbernecking?”

“For a reason.” Klaus pulled a pillow free from the top of the bed and propped himself up on his elbow. “I wanted to do a crash course in drug safety with you before the big event.”

“Pass,” Five replied automatically. 

“Ha ha, no.” Klaus fixed him with a look that was probably supposed to be stern and imposing. In practice, it just looked like he’d vomited a little into his own mouth. “This is not an elective class. Completion is mandatory before getting faced.”

Five contemplated him for a moment.

“Alright.”

It would be an overstatement to say that he was terrified of what was about to happen. He was merely… experiencing some very reasonable apprehension. _Intense_ apprehension. And if anyone knew what to expect while high, it was Klaus.

Klaus clapped his hands in delight. “Really? Wow, I thought we were going to fight about this a lot longer. Okay! So, here’s my list of do’s and don’ts.”

He scrambled upright on the bed and crossed his legs. Then, to Five’s great surprise, he pulled a sheet of paper out of his back pocket.

“First,” he read, “acid plus oranges equals an orgasm in your face hole. DO eat oranges.”

“After hearing you say that, I don’t think I’m ever eating oranges again.”

Klaus chortled knowingly. “Yeah, okay, tell me that in a few hours.”

He smacked the back of his hand against his list. “Second! Being in nature and looking at flowers and trees and stuff while you’re tripping is a-ma-zing. So, DO go outside. But that brings us to Item 2a.”

He regarded Five grimly over the paper. “DON’T go outside without a sober chaperone. One time, I got so high I started thinking that plants deserve the same rights I have as a human. If Ben hadn’t been there to convince me the grass doesn’t mind if you walk on it, I’d probably _still_ be stuck in that park.”

Not for the first time, Five wondered if Klaus’s powers granted him some kind of immunity to death. It was the only explanation he could find for how he was still fogging glass.

“DON’T watch scary movies,” Klaus read.

“We don’t have a television.”

“DON’T smoke crack.”

“We don’t have any of that, either.”

“DON’T have sex with anyone you haven’t slept with before.”

“There go my plans to seduce Luther.”

Klaus looked up from the paper. He was wearing his serious face. Five braced himself for a bait-and-switch, because Klaus only got serious when he was about to say something completely bonkers.

“Acid can be a really intense experience,” Klaus told him. “It’s not just seeing goofy shit and staring at colors—it changes the whole way you think about things. Even the way you think about yourself.”

Five frowned. If there was a punchline in there, he wasn’t hearing it.

Klaus leaned forward and cupped his hands around Five’s knees. “It can get overwhelming, sometimes. And scary. But whatever happens, you have to keep reminding yourself that it isn’t reality, it’s just the drugs.”

He let Five go with a reassuring pat. “And if you’re too deep into it to do that, ask one of us for help. I’ve got you. Promise.”

Five was quiet as he thought it over. “The only frame of reference I have for this kind of thing,” he said finally, “is getting drunk.”

It wasn’t a question, but Klaus understood what he was asking.

“This isn’t like getting drunk,” he said. “You’ll be in control of yourself the whole time. It’s just that the ‘you’ you’re in control of isn’t exactly _you,_ if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t.”

Five picked up one of the yellow tabs between two fingers. If they trembled a little, Klaus didn’t comment on it.

He brought it to his mouth.

“But I guess I’m about to find out.”

{}{}{}{}{}

“—that you’re thinking of vermillion, maybe? That’s red. Chartreuse is a yellow-green.” Allison hefted her grocery bag higher on her hip as they turned down their street. “Like, an _aggressive_ yellow-green. Chartreuse takes no prisoners.”

“Yeah, maybe I did mean vermillion. I don’t know.” Luther sighed through his nose. “There’s too many colors to keep track of these days.”

Allison shot him a bemused smile. “It’s not like they’re inventing new ones.”

“They kind of are, though.” He paused at their front gate to let her through first. “Like, what is puce? Is it purple? Is it orange? I have no idea.”

“It’s a kind of reddish-brown.”

“So call it brown, then,” he said. “Brown is brown.”

Allison laughed, juggling bags as she nudged the front door open with her foot. “Jesus, Luther, you’re such a guy! Colors come in shades, it’s a good thing.”

“They don’t all need their own names,” he insisted. “It just makes things so complicated.”

“Yeah, okay. Go declare war on ecru, you goof.”

It had been awkward, at first, being together without anyone else around to act as a buffer between them, but Luther was glad now that he’d gone to the store with her. Once the conversation started flowing, it felt like nothing had changed. It _had_ changed, a little bit, he knew that, but— Well. He could see now that they were going to be okay.

A normal brother and sister, whose relationship was no less special for how ordinary it was.

Allison stepped over the doorway and froze.

“…Uh… Five? You okay?”

He was standing in front of the open refrigerator in his underwear, a carton of orange juice in one hand, and the other crammed into his mouth.

He pulled his fingers free with a wet pop. “My teeth,” he said tonelessly. “They’re so smooth.”

Allison looked over her shoulder at Luther. He shrugged. It seemed like a valid observation.

She made her way warily into the kitchen while he closed the front door, giving Five a three-foot berth as though he was an unfamiliar animal.

“Where are your pants?” Luther asked, trailing after her.

Five looked down at his bare legs. “I took them off.”

“I see that. Um… do you want to put them back on?”

He tilted his head, considering it. His pupils were blown wide, Luther saw, and there was a fine sheen of sweat on his brow.

“No,” he decided. “I don’t think I will. I had a thought.”

Instead of sharing it with them, he took a long swig of orange juice. Some of it ran down his chin, and he wiped it away with his hand, then licked his hand clean, and then, in an unexpected turn of events, seemed to lose track of what he was doing and just kept licking, all the way up to his elbow.

Allison crinkled her nose in disgust as she unpacked canned goods onto the kitchen counter. Luther could relate. It was like watching a hairless cat groom itself.

“What was it?” he prompted after several seconds.

“Hm?”

“Your thought? That led to taking your pants off?”

“Oh.” Five took another drink. “We’re all naked under our clothes, all the time, so there’s no real point in wearing them. It doesn’t matter if you put on jeans, or a wedding dress, or a parka. Still naked.”

He pointed the juice carton at Luther. It was vaguely menacing. “Think about it.”

Allison pulled a jar of tomato sauce out of her bag and smiled at him. “How’s that acid treating you?” she asked pleasantly.

Luther maneuvered between them to put his own bags down on the table. In all the excitement of obtaining the LSD, he hadn’t really given much thought to what was going to happen after Five took it. He’d seen him drunk, sure, but… this was uncharted territory.

“It hasn’t kicked in yet,” Five told Allison, an edge of frustration to his voice. “I’m not high at all.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Uh… You sure about that?”

“Positive.” He swiveled around to Luther, his eyes narrowing. “I need to touch your teeth.”

Luther inched backwards. “I’m… pretty sure you don’t, actually.”

“I do.” Five jumped directly in front of him, one hand already extended towards his face. “I think mine might be _too_ smooth, but I need to see what other people’s are like to be sure. Open your mouth.”

“Oh my God,” Allison muttered as Luther swatted his hand away.

“You’re not putting your fingers in my mouth,” he protested, protecting his crotch with one arm in case Five decided to kick him in the balls. That seemed to be his go-to move. “That’s gross.”

Five puffed up angrily. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve done for you, Luther?” he demanded. “This is the only thing I’ve ever asked for in return—"

“So ask for something else!” Luther seized both of his hands to stop the small, grasping fingers scrabbling at his lips. “Something less weird!”

Five warped away. It took a second for Luther to spot where he’d gone, and by then, it was too late—he was already leaping off the top of the fridge onto his back.

“This isn’t weird!” he said furiously as he locked his legs around Luther’s waist. “I just need to see what your fucking teeth feel like!”

Luther had not started his day expecting to have a sweaty, half-naked preteen clinging to him like a limpet and trying to shove their fist into his mouth, but the one positive in the experience was that it was happening in the privacy of their own home.

If this was going down where people could see it, he’d probably wind up in jail.

“Five, no!” he cried, spinning in a circle in an effort to shake him loose without hurting him. “Can’t I just do your laundry or something?”

“Guys, stop,” Allison pleaded. “This is how people lose eyeballs.”

Five kicked one leg over Luther’s shoulder and hoisted himself higher. “I can do my own laundry,” he snapped. “Jesus, you’re so fucking dramatic about everything! Just open your mouth!”

“NO, there’s GERMS!”

Allison had abandoned the groceries and was digging through the cleaning supplies stowed under the sink. She whirled around with a spray bottle of water and vinegar solution and spritzed Five in the face with it.

“This is exactly why I was against you doing acid!” she told him as he tried to bat her away. “You have _no chill,_ Five Hargreeves!”

He wiped his face on the back of Luther’s shirt and glowered at her, but before he could speak, she sprayed more vinegar straight into his mouth.

After a few seconds of spluttering on the taste, he unhooked his leg from around Luther’s neck and slid to the floor.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I… might be high.”

Allison spritzed him again. “You’re definitely high,” she told him irritably as he gagged. “If you were wandering around in your underpants trying to touch people’s teeth _without_ being on drugs, it’d be time to take you to the hospital.”

“Yes. Alright.” Five smoothed his hair and turned to face Luther. “I regret trying to put my hand in your mouth.”

“Do you?” Luther asked suspiciously.

“I regret that you wouldn’t let me do it,” Five amended.

Yeah. That sounded more like the brother he knew.

Five tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling, his eyes black and eerie. “I’m going upstairs,” he said. “Where it’s quiet.”

He lowered his gaze to regard Luther again. “We’re out of orange juice, by the way.”

Allison reached into one of the shopping bags and pulled out a new carton. Five accepted it from her and cradled it to his chest, smiling.

_“Fuck_ yeah,” he said, and then disappeared.

Luther and Allison both stared at the spot where he had just been.

Allison tossed the spray bottle onto the counter. “Well, this is off to an auspicious start,” she said wearily.

“It’ll be fine,” Luther promised. He rubbed the place on his ribs Five had kicked. “How long did Klaus say this lasts? Twelve hours?”

“Oh, God.” Allison let her eyes flutter closed. “Don’t remind me.”

“It’s only half a day,” he pointed out. “We can make it for half a day of… this.”

Allison opened her eyes. She didn’t say anything, but doubt was radiating off of her.

“Seriously,” Luther insisted, gesturing towards the ceiling. “I mean, he’s acting a little nuts, but when isn’t he?”

He flashed her a reassuring smile. “And anyway, it’s _Five._ I’m sure he’s got everything under control.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Five lay spread-eagled on his back on his bed, in a helpless thrall to the pattern of paint on the ceiling.

It looped in overlapping whorls, perfectly symmetric from one corner of the room to the next. He had never noticed it before, but it _moved._ Waves of water crashing over a white-sand beach.

He felt seasick. Did he feel seasick? No, perhaps not. There was no nausea, he determined, only the illusion of it.

It was funny how the mind could influence the body like that. A reminder that they were all one system, instead of two separate entities. Could he will away a cold, he wondered, with sufficient concentration? Rid himself of the gunshot scar on his side, if he visualized the skin being whole? Or—terrible thought— maybe he had brought his own powers into being, simply by convincing himself he should have them.

_It’s not reality,_ a voice told him. _It’s just the drugs._

Five jolted upright. “Wyatt?”

No. There was no one. It was Klaus’s voice, playing from memory.

“Five?” Vanya called from outside the room. “Can I come in for a sec?”

He blinked at the door. “Yeah. Okay.”

She opened it a crack and leaned in, smiling at him. “Hey,” she said, “I—Wow. You’re… almost naked.”

“I _am_ naked,” he corrected. “So are you.”

“Ah…” Her mouth hung open for a second, then she shut it and shook her head. “Okay, sure. Anyway. I just wanted to bring you something.”

She shuffled inside and held out a folded fleece blanket, in an indeterminate shade of taupe. It seemed to shimmer as he looked at it.

“It’s from me and Allison’s bed,” she told him. “I remember the first night we were here, when _I_ was high, it felt really nice to touch. I thought you might want to borrow it for a while.”

He reached out a cautious hand and ran it over the fabric, and… what. WHAT.

Vanya grinned at the thunderstruck expression on his face. “I know, right?” she said. “Want me to wrap you up in it?”

Five buried both hands in the blanket instead of answering. It was impossibly, mind-bendingly soft. The softest thing he’d ever felt. He had the sensation that it was swallowing his arms into an infinite pit of fluff, pulling him down into someplace as dark and warm and safe as the womb.

…Too soft. _It was too soft._

“Get that thing away from me!” he barked, yanking his hands back at the same time Vanya jumped in surprise. “What the fuck, Vanya? What the _fuck?”_

“I… it’s a nice blanket,” she said in confusion, peering down at it like she was expecting it to have transformed in her arms.

“It’s weaponized comfort,” Five insisted. “That’s what it is. I hate it.”

“Oh, Five,” she cajoled. “It’s not dangerous. Come on, I’ve been sleeping on it every night.”

He got up on his knees and reached over to punch it. _“Fuck your shit,”_ he hissed at the blanket.

“I… Okay.” Vanya took a step backwards. “Forget it. I’ll put it back in my room.”

Five’s eyes narrowed as he scrutinized her face. “Are you laughing?” he demanded.

“No,” she said fast, but her lips were twitching at the corners.

“You’re laughing.” He sat back on his heels. “I don’t see anything funny, here, Vanya.”

“Well, it’s… it’s a little funny.” She brought up a hand and pinched two fingers together. “Little bit.”

Irritation roiled through him. Vanya had always been one of the more sensible members of their family. What had happened?

This, he thought darkly, was Klaus’s fault. He should never have let her spend so much time with him.

Five pointed at the door. “Out,” he commanded. “I have work to do. I’ll deal with you and your sandpit blanket later.”

A snort escaped her. “Deal with me how?”

_“Sternly.”_

Vanya stared at him for a long moment.

“Okay,” she said. “Now I’m about to really start laughing and you’ll get mad, so… I’m just going to go.”

“Don’t come crying to me when that blanket swallows you,” he called after her.

“I won’t,” her voice floated in from the hallway. “Have fun being high, I guess. Let me know if you need anything.”

Alone once more, Five flopped over onto his back. The waves on the ceiling surged and retreated. The hum of the fan was synchronized with his heartbeat.

_Wyatt,_ he thought. _Wyatt._

He thought it in his mind, and in every electric inch of his skin, in his hair and in his too-smooth teeth and in the dark space inside of him that he supposed was where the soul resided. His entire body was alive in a way it never had been before, a conductor to something beyond himself. And he turned each part of it over to finding his quarry.

“Wyatt,” he said out loud. The words had weight in the air.

“Wyatt. Wyatt. _Wyatt.”_

Something in him was straining. A muscle he had never used before, reaching and reaching and trying to make the connection.

“Wyatt,” he said. “Answer me, you son of a bitch!”

The ceiling’s waves roiled and his vision swam, a feeling in his head like his skull was vibrating.

“Okay, okay, I’m right here,” a reproachful voice said. “You don’t have to yell at me. Like, damn, dude.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Diego had a sheet of newspaper spread out across the remains of the coffee table, and wood shavings were collecting on it in small, delicate curls.

His carving was starting to look half decent now. The handle was just about symmetrical, and the roughness around the edges was disappearing with each stroke of his knife.

It was also looking less and less like a spoon as time wore on, but that was a problem for another day.

Vanya drifted down the stairs and took a seat next to Luther on the sofa.

Diego blew a splinter of wood off his knife. “Five okay up there?”

“Yeah. I mean, sort of?” She shrugged. “He just got mad at a blanket for being too soft. So if you count that as okay, then sure.”

Luther glanced at her over his book. “Did he try to touch _your_ teeth?”

Her face creased in confusion, but before she could answer, Klaus came slithering down the stairs on his stomach like a wingless serpent.

“Greetings, family!” he said, holding his upper body off the bottom step with his arms. “How are you all enjoying my dramatic entrance, which is in no way related to me tripping?”

Allison popped her head out of the kitchen. “Are you alright?”

“Never better!” With a grimace, Klaus hauled himself into a sitting position. “Who really _needs_ two kneecaps?”

Luther put his book down while Allison shook her head.

“Five did it,” he informed Klaus. “He took the acid.”

“I know. I was there. Should have taken a photo for the family scrapbook.”

“Right.” Luther rubbed his palms over his knees. “So. I guess we’re just… waiting, then.”

Diego made a frustrated noise as he flicked his knife over the wood. This was always the worst part of a mission when they were kids—sitting around with your thumb up your ass until something happened.

It was also always the part where he got into trouble. He couldn’t stand not having anything specific to do in situations like this—he got antsy, and started feeling like everything was out of his control, and then before he even realized it he was hauling off to do some dumb shit, like pick a fight with Luther, or confront a suspect alone, or charge into a place with zero backup and no clear idea of what he was going to do once he got there.

…Or stop a presidential assassination that was always meant to be a part of history.

He looked over to Vanya, who was staring off into space with a vacant expression on her face.

“Hey,” he said. “Want to learn to fight?”

She blinked. “…What?”

“Yeah,” he said, as the idea gathered steam. “Five was right, we should work on your hand-to-hand combat skills. Might be needing them soon.”

“Well… I…” She glanced between Klaus and Allison for help. Klaus blew her a kiss. “I don’t know, Diego, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to do that in here—”

“We could go to the basement,” Luther jumped in. “We could clear a space.”

Diego turned to glare at him. This was an A and B conversation, and he’d thank Luther to C his way out of it.

“They do have a point,” Allison told Vanya. She leaned against the wall between the living room and kitchen. “Our fight with Noor was… Let’s just say there was room for improvement and leave it at that.”

The answering look Vanya gave her was the physical embodiment of _‘Et tu, Brute?’_

Luther got to his feet and gestured to Vanya, because apparently now he was part of this even though _nobody_ had asked him to be. “Come on,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”

_“That’s_ a lie,” said Klaus.

“It’s exercise. Exercise always makes you feel good.”

“Remember the time you did pull-ups till you barfed?”

“And you should know how to defend yourself.”

“And then after you threw up you started crying and then Five told you to stop being a baby so you tried to hit him but he jumped away and you hit me instead by accident and then _I_ started crying, and then Dad said Christmas was over early and sent us all to our rooms.”

Allison smiled at the memory. “Aw, that was the year Pogo gave me that chalk that made my hands break out in hives!”

Diego set his knife and piece of wood down on the arm of his chair and stood. “Basement,” he told Vanya in a firm tone. “Let’s go.”

“Chin up, Vanny!” Klaus called cheerily as Diego and Luther flanked her like a pair of prison guards leading her off to the electric chair. “If you can kick Luther’s ass, I’ll steal you something nice.”

“You come, too,” Diego ordered. “You need to brush up before shit pops off with Wyatt and them.”

Klaus lounged against the stairs. “I’m preparing in other ways,” he said, then fluttered his lashes at Allison. “Can you trim my hair again?”

She shoved away from the wall to let Luther and Vanya by. Vanya begged with her eyes for a stay of execution as she trudged past, which went roundly ignored.

“Sure,” Allison told Klaus. “Can’t have you go to your death looking like a ragamuffin.”

“Well, it’s like they say. Live fast, die never, I’ll be hot when I’m eighty.”

Diego pulled the basement door closed behind him to leave them to their bullshit. He had actual important things to do.

“Okay,” he said, trotting after Vanya down the steps. “So, first things first, martial arts systems are mostly useless unless you’re fighting somebody who’s also following the rules of that same martial arts system, so take whatever you know about tae kwan do or krav maga or whatever and throw it out. We’re starting from scratch.”

She reached the bottom of the stairs and turned to him, looking uneasy.

“I don’t know _anything_ about martial arts.”

“Good.”

As Luther began dragging a table towards the wall, Diego hopped off the last step and took her face between tender hands.

“In this house,” he said, “it’s prison rules.”

{}{}{}{}{}

“Who are you?” Five blurted out.

He’d said it on reflex, because he knew who this was, of course, but all the talking points he had prepared tumbled straight out his ear the second _a person started speaking to him in his head._

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth,” Wyatt said sagely. “Don’t worry, though. If I see any weird sex stuff while I’m in here, I’ll keep it private.”

Five took a second to let that sink in. His first instinct was that he was being mocked, but it sounded disconcertingly sincere.

“I don’t know what ‘disconserving’ means. Is that like, weirded-out? You feel weirded-out.”

Well. He supposed he did feel weirded-out, yes.

“You’re just like your brother and sister,” Wyatt continued with a hint of fondness. “They were always thinking all kinds of crazy-ass SAT words. Like ‘catastrophic.’ And ‘rectum.’”

This… was not going at all how Five had been expecting.

In an effort to get his thoughts together, he ground the heels of his hands against his eyes, so hard that color exploded in faint rings behind his lids. He pulled away before he could get distracted by them.

“Yeah, you’re high as a kite, my man,” Wyatt said, amused.

“Thank you,” Five said stiffly. “I’m aware.”

He dropped his hands to his lap and forced himself to fold them. “We need to talk.”

“I know,” said Wyatt. “I was going to hit up Vanya again, but I can talk to you instead, I guess.”

Then, with a hint of remorse, “She’s pissed at me, isn’t she?”

Ah. Five had been correct, then— Vanya _did_ have a rapport with her telepath. Here was something he could use to his advantage.

“Of course she’s angry,” he said aloud. “You tricked her, and then vanished without an explanation. She doesn’t want to speak to you right now—maybe never again.”

“I didn’t _mean_ to vanish,” Wyatt protested. “It’s just that I _couldn’t_ talk to her. See, I usually have to take time making a connection with people before I can get all the way inside their heads. Like, they gotta get used to me hanging out on the front porch before they invite me in to hang out, you know? So I had to really force it to talk to your other sister while she was fist-fighting Noor, and I was worn slap out for a few days.”

Almost as an afterthought, he added, “Unless they’re high. It’s wicked easy to get into somebody’s mind if they’re high. And I can hear everything you’re thinking, so you can forget about trying to get an advantage over me.”

Five gazed up at the undulating ceiling.

He… did not care for this. As impressive as his powers were, his superior mind had always been his best weapon. And here it was, effortlessly countered by a person who couldn’t use the word ‘rectum’ in a sentence. It was worse than being nude in front of a stranger—it was peeling back his skin and opening up his skull and letting the stranger poke around in parts that were never meant to be touched.

It was, Five thought, one of the worst experiences of his life. And much like his other worst experiences, he had brought it on himself.

“Aw, this isn’t _that_ bad, is it?” Wyatt asked. “We’re just having a conversation, dude. Relax.”

Relax. _Relax?_

“I’m sorry,” Five bit out, “I’m finding it a bit difficult to trust a murderer in the making. If I’m being a poor host, I’ll have to ask that you forgive me.”

“Murderer?” Wyatt echoed. “Me?”

“You,” Five confirmed with a voice full of venom. “I know you’re working with Sunny and Noor, and I know what they’re planning to do. And _you_ should know this—we are not going to let them get away with it. If you have an ounce of conscience or a teaspoon of sense, you’ll abandon ship right now and start sharing whatever information you have with me.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked, as Five felt the strange vibrating sensation in his head return with a vengeance. “My conscience is clear, bro, I haven’t done nothing that…”

Five glanced wild-eyed around the room as he trailed off. The light was so, so bright—because his pupils were dilated, he thought fleetingly—and every speck of dust and chip in the paint stood out in stark, ugly relief.

Images flashed through his mind. His memories, maybe, as Wyatt dredged them from the recesses of his brain. The appointment book with its gold lettering, and the page with _Nima Sherpa???_ written on it, Diego’s face illuminated by the glow of a computer screen and Klaus shimmying around Vanya’s room in a panic as they discussed the possible theft of their powers.

All of it, all of it, laid bare against his will.

“You guys are wrong about Sunny and Noor,” Wyatt said finally. “And they were wrong about all of you.”

Five surged to his feet to stand on the mattress. There was no one here to vent his fury on, no one he could threaten or intimidate, and he could feel his anger and his mounting fear coursing in infinite, impotent loops through his veins. His heart, he thought, might explode from the dreadful pressure of it.

“You’re a fucking liar,” he snarled, clenching his hands into fists. _“You_ were the one who tried to stop Vanya from opening the book, and _you_ were the one who brought stealing powers up to Klaus—”

“Whoa, whoa, you’re right about that, but you’re getting it twisted—”

“And you were the one,” Five half-shouted, “who said you didn’t want anyone to get hurt, so make your fucking mind up, _Wyatt._ Are you with us or are you against us?”

“You don’t understand!” he cried. “Somebody _is_ going to be murdered for their powers, but not by Sunny or Noor!”

“By who, then?” Five demanded. The waves on the ceiling were churning like a storm, the walls, too, starting to bend and ooze like the very architecture of the house was going to be stripped away once he got to the truth. “Who are you working for?”

“Nobody! Five—We’re pretty sure the murderer is going to be one of _you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was hoping I'd get Part Two of Five's adventures in psychedelics out next week, but it turns out there's a holiday coming up or something? I kinda thought we were skipping those this year, but whatever. Two weeks it is!


	11. Chapter Ten

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Five tunes in, turns on, and freaks out. (Part Two).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Head's up, this is where Five's acid trip goes wrong. If you're sensitive to that kind of thing, you might not want to read!

Five’s brain was short-circuiting, and it was taking the rest of his body down with it.

He was trying to think, but everywhere he let his eyes rest there was color, color, color, bright and beautiful and unrelenting. Rainbow granules shimmered in his vision like psychedelic TV static, buzzing his fingers with pin-and-needle prickliness where he touched them. His mouth was full of saliva, and he needed to piss.

Fragments of a poem written by he-couldn’t-remember-who floated through his mind. _I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead—_

“Nope, world’s still here,” Wyatt interrupted. “Listen— _I_ know you aren’t going to pop off and kill anybody, alright? _I_ know that. And we can figure out how to convince Sunny and Noor, too, but first you need to chill out, because you’re getting all disconserved on me again.”

Five squeezed his eyes closed. “Discon- _certed,”_ he said. “Not disconserved.”

“There you go,” Wyatt said encouragingly. “You’re correcting me, I’m learning new words, we’re both having a good time.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Nothing about this was a good time. Five sank down to his knees on the bed, trying to wrap his head around the monolith of _‘We’re pretty sure the murderer is going to be one of you.’_

Sunny or Noor must have hopped ahead in time with their briefcase and seen something. A dead body. One of them with new powers. Something. Had they gone specifically to check up on the six of them, he wondered? See what new havoc they might be wreaking? Because here they were, steaming ahead into a future that hadn’t even existed until a few short weeks ago, and apparently they were already causing trouble in it.

Was there _any_ timeline where they weren’t the villains in their own story?

“Aw, no, that’s not it,” said Wyatt. “None of you are villains. I was in Vanya’s head and I was in Klaus’s head and I saw the rest of you through their eyes—you’re not bad people. You just have really bad luck.”

A feather-light sensation tingled down Five’s spine like a reassuring hand. He wasn’t sure how much he could trust Wyatt, the person, but he supposed there could be no judge of character he should trust more than Wyatt, the telepath.

“You _can_ trust me,” he said in earnestness. “There aren’t many people out there like us. We should look out for one another, don’t you think?”

Mm. Five had spent most of his life without the burden of the living, breathing type of responsibility. Now that he had five of them, he could use all the help he could get.

He opened his eyes. “When Sunny and Noor went to the future,” he said, “what exactly did they see?”

Wyatt didn’t answer right away. The TV static filling the air pulsed in anticipation.

“You know, that… doesn’t matter,” he said, an off-tempo edge to his voice. “They took it wrong anyways, so let’s just put it behind us.”

Five snorted. “I have some experience with these things, and believe me, it matters,” he said wryly. “Who was the victim?”

“Oh. I… don’t know.”

Were they someone neither Sunny or Noor had met before? Or were the remains of the body too disfigured to identify?

“Oh my God, they just didn’t get a good look,” Wyatt said, horrified. “Holy shit, dude.”

“I’m only trying to figure out what’s going to happen.” The stripes on the bedspread were starting to writhe like snakes. Five forcibly averted his gaze. “What date did they travel to, anyway?”

“You know, I… don’t think they caught the date?” he said hesitantly. “It was just kind of a, uh… a spur of the moment briefcase ride. Two friends on a daytrip. Into the future.”

The words rattled around in Five’s head for a few moments before clicking into place.

“They didn’t go,” he realized out loud.

“Yes they did!” Wyatt protested. “They totally did. I’m just not telling you the full truth, which is that… Sunny and Noor went to the future to… find… winning lottery numbers. There it is, that’s the secret.”

Oh, come on. Every Commission agent past, present, and future knew that to use time-travel for personal financial gain was to sign your own death warrant. That was first day stuff.

He couldn’t imagine Sunny, at least, would be so stupid, but… there had been a name that came up while they were at the library. Someone from the appointment book, who _had_ won the lottery.

“Vivienne has nothing to do with it,” Wyatt said fast. “…Which is a name I pulled from _your_ head, because I don’t even know her.”

Five gazed down at the bed snakes. There had to be some cosmic system of checks and balances in place, he mused. A mechanism the universe used to maintain its own amoral sense of order.

What else could explain the irony of a man who read thoughts limiting his own powers by being such an inept liar?

“Yeah, I know,” Wyatt agreed woefully. “Vivienne has _everything_ to do with it, she just didn’t want to get involved. God, this is exactly why Sunny said I should stop talking to you guys! And I didn’t listen, and now Vanya’s mad at me and Noor’s mad at me and her and Viv are about to be mad at me, too.”

There was an odd feeling in Five’s head. Not so much a sound as a tangible sense of distress. A metaphysical wail from out in the ether.

“I fucked up _hard,”_ Wyatt lamented.

Five took a deep breath. “I’ll give you one last chance,” he said, “to tell me the truth.”

For a brief moment, there was blessed silence.

“Okay,” Wyatt said with reluctance. “Guess there’s no reason to quit digging my own grave halfway through. You’re sitting down, right?”

That couldn’t be a good sign.

“Yes,” said Five.

“Alright, here’s the thing. Nobody _went_ to the future—Vivienne can _see_ it.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Allison ran her hands through Klaus’s hair, and he luxuriated in the feeling of her nails scraping over his scalp.

“So how short are we going?” she asked. “Can I finally cut all this off?”

“Nooo,” he said. “Trim only. This is three years of my life you’re looking at, you sociopath.”

Allison snorted and started brushing it. “I gave you a trim last week,” she pointed out. “Are you sure this isn’t an excuse to get someone to play with your hair?”

Klaus hummed in pleasure as she dragged the brush through it. “How dare you?” he asked serenely. “The fucking audacity.”

She laughed, and switched to the other side of his head.

Klaus let his eyes slip closed. The kitchen was warm, and Allison smelled like ginger. Upstairs, Five was high off his ass, and below them Diego and Luther were beating up a girl, but it was nice, this little oasis of peace in the ongoing natural disaster that was their day-to-day lives.

Naturally, he was about to burn it down.

Klaus drew in a breath. “Allison?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“Have you thought about contacting Ray at all?”

Her hands stilled in his hair. “Why would you ask that?”

“Oh, you know.” He shrugged. “Prying into your business. Looking for juicy gossip. Asking inappropriate questions for the fuck of it. The usual.”

Allison leaned over his shoulder to scrutinize his face.

“You found your soldier, didn’t you?”

He dropped his gaze to the floor. “I looked him up,” he confessed in a soft voice. “When we were at the library.”

“Oh, Klaus.”

She made a vague motherly sound and looped her arms around his neck, one of her cheeks pressed against the top of his head.

“I have thought about it,” she confided. “But… I don’t know. I made up this fantasy life for him in my head—like, everything that I hope happened to him—and I like the dream so much that I’m not sure I want to know the truth.”

Klaus felt her smile into his hair. “That makes me sound so crazy when I say it out loud.”

“It doesn’t.” He let his weight rest against her. “What does the Raymond Chestnut Idyll look like?”

She hummed low in her throat. “Well. He’s really happy. He married someone else after I left, and she’s amazing. She already knew how to cook when they met, so they jumped into making all the fancy stuff together right off the bat, and they had kids, too.”

Klaus stroked his fingertips over the back of her hand. “How many?”

“Three,” she said. “I can’t decide if they’re two boys and a girl or two girls and a boy, but it doesn’t matter. Their dad is the first black mayor of Dallas, so they can do whatever they want with their lives. Or he’s the first black president of the University of Texas? I don’t know, he’s knocking down racial barriers someplace, and people are going to remember his name forever.”

Her grip tightened around him. “He’d be old now. He’s still a sharp dresser. No pants hiked up to his armpits or any of that. But he does play Bingo and go on cruises with his wife, and he won’t shut up about his grandkids to anybody who will listen.”

Klaus felt her throat work as she swallowed. “He thinks about me, sometimes. It doesn’t make him sad. He knows my life turned out just as beautiful as his did, because Ray thought I was just as beautiful a person as he was.”

Klaus wrapped his arms around Allison’s, hugging her as much as he was hugging himself. He wished he could dream up something like that for Dave—a fantasy where he got every good thing he deserved, and there was no pain.

Maybe he’d met a guy in the Marines. A jarhead with calloused hands and a secret affinity for poetry. After they both got out of the war unscathed, they’d shack up together. Move to San Fran, or buy a farm out in the boonies where nobody could see what they got up to at night, or during the day, for that matter, lying side by side in sunlit grass. Their roommates would be a mutt of a dog with a big personality, and Dave’s oldest sister after she _finally_ cut her loser husband loose, and her two young boys, who would get to see that a man wasn’t a pansy for telling people he loved them.

Dave and his mystery Marine could live out every dream he had once whispered against Klaus’s mouth, and Dave would be so happy that Klaus could just about pretend he wasn’t sick with jealousy at the thought.

But he already knew none of that had happened.

“That’s a nice life,” he said once he had found the words. “You should direct one for me sometime.”

He angled his head backwards to look at Allison. “I don’t want a wife in mine, but keep the part where I’m the first black mayor of Dallas.”

She nuzzled the side of her face against his. “I legitimately cannot stand you half the time,” she said, but she didn’t let go, and neither did he.

{}{}{}{}{}

In spite of the fact that Five could jump through time and space, and his siblings could destroy worlds and speak to the dead and commune with interdimensional monsters, the first thought that flitted through his mind upon being told there existed a person who could see the future was _‘Bullshit.’_

“No, really,” Wyatt insisted. “I had her make all my March Madness picks this year, and I won six hundred bucks.”

His tone took on a reverent cast. “She doesn’t even watch basketball.”

Five rubbed at his forehead, then stopped because he had the horrifying sensation that his skin was peeling off under his hand.

“So what happened was, a few weeks ago she told me she’d started seeing all this crazy crap,” Wyatt continued. “There was a house, and that book with ‘Appointments’ written on it, and a kid—we know now that’s you—and then there was a room full of smoke and a bunch of people standing around a dead chick. She couldn’t tell who anybody was on account of the smoke and all, but now that I’ve seen you guys, it was _definitely_ you guys. The still-alive people, I mean. I don’t know who the dead lady is.”

Well. At least in _this_ doomsday scenario, his siblings had all had the courtesy to not get themselves killed.

“Right? If you’re breathing, you’re achieving,” said Wyatt. “Anyway, me and Viv just kinda talked in circles about it for a while because we didn’t know what to do, but then Sunny and Noor showed up at my place for the first time in like, a full year to tell me the Handler was dead—”

“Wait,” Five interrupted. “Didn’t you tell Vanya you don’t work for the Commission? How do you know the Handler?”

“We… met,” Wyatt said cautiously. “Once. For a minute.”

“She was trying to recruit you,” he deduced.

“Okay, yes, but—” Wyatt’s tone turned pleading. “Maybe you could ask Sunny about it later? Because I don’t know if I’m supposed to be keeping that story a secret or not, and I don’t want to give her any more reasons to kick my ass the next time I see her.”

It didn’t have much relevance to the situation at hand, anyhow. He filed it away under ‘Questions for Another Time.’

“Thanks, man,” Wyatt said with relief. “That’s pretty much the end, anyway. I told Noor and Sunny what Viv saw, and they knew where the house was at, so they decided to go to New York to figure out what was going on. Or, Sunny decided that. Noor wanted to hang out and go scuba diving.”

Five turned everything over in his mind, trying to make sense of all the pieces in the same way he’d solve a Rubik’s cube. There was one square that he just couldn’t get into place, any way he looked at it.

“I don’t understand why you think this dead woman has superpowers,” he said. “Unless there’s something else you aren’t telling me.”

It took a minute to get an answer. There were still waves on the ceiling and snakes on the bed, and in the silence, Five had the thought that he might be the only still thing in the universe, like he was made of stone, or maybe like he was dead himself.

“We-e-ell,” Wyatt said warily, “the downside of Vivienne’s powers is that they aren’t like, a _hundred_ percent accurate—"

Oh, of fucking _course_ they weren’t. He might have been a shitty liar, but this idiot was world class at burying the lede.

“Just hear me out, okay?” Wyatt said, sounding a touch offended. “Viv sees lots of stuff that never ends up happening, it’s true, but the only part of _this_ that’s missing is the dead girl. And if she never turns up, great, but I’m pretty sure it’s only a matter of time.”

Alright. Alright. Five fisted the bedspread in his hands to ground himself.

“I apologize for calling you an idiot,” he said.

“I can still hear your thoughts, dude. You aren’t sorry at all.”

“I didn’t say I was sorry. I said I was apologizing.”

There was a brief droning sound in his mind, like he was listening to a mental sigh.

“Okay, fine,” said Wyatt. “Apology accepted, I guess. Anyway. Vivienne has seen other people who have powers die a bunch of times. In 2016, she saw me stop in the street to pick up a quarter and get hit by a bus, and last year I was supposed to crash a wave runner into a speedboat. One time she saw Noor get shot in the head. When she was young, she thought the Asian kid from the Sparrow Academy was going to bite it in his teens.”

Five furrowed his brow. That one was more accurate than she probably realized.

“What do you mean?” The vibrating feeling in his head came back. “Oh, shit, he was your brother? I’m sorry, dude. If my brother died, I’d be really bummed, too.”

“It’s fine,” Five said stiffly. “Continue.”

“Alright, yeah, we don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” said Wyatt. “The point is, when people like us die, there’s little sparkles for a second. And usually they just kind of go out, but _this_ lady’s sparkles went to someone else in the room. They stole them. Stole her sparkles.”

“Little sparkles,” Five repeated.

“Yeah. I saw them in her memory. Death sparkles, man.”

Five tried to imagine what that would even look like. The mental image he envisioned was beyond absurd.

“No, not like that,” said Wyatt, reproachful. “You don’t barf glitter, this is serious. Like… imagine there’s a teeny tiny fairy that lives inside you, and when you die, it dies.”

Jesus. He had been willing to accept there was someone speaking to him in his head, and that Sunny was not actually working against them, and even that there could be a person out there who could see the future. But it was here, at the parasitic fairies and the fucking _death sparkles_ , that he drew the line. Wyatt was messing with him. Or crazy.

…Or this was all a figment of his drugged imagination, because _he_ was crazy.

“You’re not. Or, well, maybe you are a little bit, but most people are a little bit crazy,” said Wyatt. “Here, I’ll prove I’m real. Ask me something you don’t know.”

Five hugged his knees and let his forehead rest against them. “If I ask you something I don’t know, how would I know whether the answer is true?”

“You… wouldn’t. Okay, ask me something I don’t know.”

There was a beat of silence, where Five waited for him to get it.

“Oh. No, that doesn’t work either, does it?”

It did not.

The old feeling he’d had in the Apocalypse sometimes washed over him. Where he started wondering if any of it was really happening, and if he was really Five Hargreeves, who’d once lived in a home and had people who loved him, or if it was all a bunch of lies he told himself to have a reason to go on, because he had no past and he had no future, only an eternal, unbearable present.

…Except now, he had a way to prove to himself he wasn’t delusional.

Five raised his head off his knees.

“I need to talk to Vivienne,” he said into the empty room. “How do I get in touch with her?”

“Oh. I’m not sure she’d go for that,” said Wyatt. “Also, I don’t think you need to talk to her so much as you need, like… a hug? Maybe you should go find one of your brothers or sisters. You’re worrying me here, dude.”

“I do need to talk to her,” he insisted. He needed to hear all this from the source. Get evidence that it wasn’t just some shared madness between Wyatt and Sunny. He needed, as he did with most things, to be able to see it and hear it and understand it for himself, because he feared that if he suspended his disbelief too far he would tip fully over into insanity without ever realizing it, and that there would be no way back.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” Wyatt said in concern. “You’re really not crazy, man, you’re just high.”

God, was he ever. He’d very much like to be un-high now, he thought. The novelty had worn off, and the whole experience was beginning to feel like psychic nausea.

“Just gotta ride it out,” said Wyatt. “Look, I’ll go talk to Viv, okay? I can’t promise you anything, but if she’s down, I’ll set up a mental conference call so you can meet her.”

“Yes. Alright.” Belatedly, he added, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He paused. “You’re going to be cool about this, right? Vivienne’s not me. If you call _her_ an idiot, she’ll tell you about yourself right back, and I’m not trying to referee a fight in my head.”

Five nodded. The walls contorted like funhouse mirrors with the movement.

“Agreed.”

“Cool. Not that it’s my business, but while I’m working on her, you should go to the bathroom. You _really_ need to take a leak, my man.”

{}{}{}{}{}

The tables in the basement had been pushed against the walls, the piles of junk on them consolidated into wobbling towers, and Diego stood in the center of the clearing flexing his arms.

“Okay,” he instructed Vanya, “punch me.”

“Uh…” She cleared her throat. “Like… right now?”

“No, Linda, next week,” he said with a roll of his eyes. _“Yes_ right now, I need to see what you’re doing wrong before I can correct your stance.”

His mistake, Vanya thought, was assuming she had a stance to correct. She had exactly two moves in a fight—scorch the earth, or run away.

It must have shown on her face how at sea she was here, because Luther stepped into the ring next to him.

“Maybe we should start by going over basic body mechanics first,” he suggested. “So, you should keep in mind that most people you’ll fight are going to be taller and heavier than you are, because… well, because most people are taller and heavier than you are. But there are lots of ways to minimize your disadvantage—”

“Which I’m going to show you, not just talk at you about,” Diego cut in. He beckoned Vanya closer, oblivious to how Luther’s face fell at having his lecture on Laying a Motherfucker Out 101 come to its abrupt end. “Come on. Punch me.”

“Diego, I…” She wrung her hands together. “I don’t want to hurt you or anything.”

He scoffed as he spread his legs into a more defensive stance. “Good luck trying,” he said. “Come on.”

Luther stepped forward. “Would you rather hit me?” he asked solicitously. “You really can’t do any damage to me at all, I’ll just brace for it.”

When she didn’t move, he glanced around the room for a prop to demonstrate.

“Look, here.”

He pulled a tennis racket from under a stack of vinyl jazz records, flexed his enormous left bicep, and broke the thing off at the handle by slicing at his elbow.

“Totally fine,” he promised, holding his reddening arm up for her scrutiny. “It’ll just sting for a few seconds.”

He looked so earnest. And Diego looked so impatient, and they were both kind of right that she was way behind the rest of them in terms of self-defense, and there was no way out of this, was there?

Vanya nodded. “Okay,” she said, in a quavering voice. “I’m… going to hit you.”

“Yeah,” Luther agreed, clasping his hands behind his back. “Go ahead.”

“I’m going to hit you,” she repeated, as though turning it into a mantra would sell her on the idea. “I’m going to hit you… like… hard.”

“Do it.”

“I’m going to.”

“I’m ready.”

“So hard.”

“Anytime now.”

She set her dominant leg behind her, and squared her shoulders over her feet in an awkward semblance of the position shown by the diagrams in the Academy’s hallways when she was a child, and she drew back her fist…

…And lost her nerve, and closed her eyes, and delivered a half-hearted swat to Luther’s chest.

“Ow!”

Vanya hopped backwards. “I’m sorry!”

“No, no, it was a joke, I’m not—!” Luther ran a hand through his hair, contrite. “I guess that was funnier in my head.”

Diego sighed. “Vanya, listen,” he said, stern, but not unkind. “This is just like when I showed you how to ride a bike. You had a thousand reasons why you couldn’t do it, but I made you keep trying, and then what happened?”

“I… learned how ride it,” she admitted reluctantly.

“Exactly. Quit trying to convince yourself you can’t do shit.” He spread his arms in invitation. “Hit me.”

Vanya whetted her lips. “Okay.”

He watched with a keen eye as she got back into position. “There you go,” he said. “Right foot back a little more… a little more… okay, you’ve got it.”

The stance felt strange, and more than a bit ridiculous because she didn’t _do_ things like this, but… now she did, she guessed. As of today, she was officially the kind of person who punched people. Oh, God.

She made an abortive swing with her right arm that didn’t rise above the level of her waist.

_“Vanya.”_

“I’m trying!”

Diego tapped his own fist against his forehead in thought. “Okay,” he said. “Try getting mad at me.”

“But I’m not mad at you.”

“I can fix that.” He thrust his chin at her. “I finished your almond milk.”

“That’s Klaus’s,” Luther told him.

“…Oh.” Diego’s eyes roved over the ceiling, his lips quirking into a frown. “Shit.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Luther went on. “Me and Allison _just_ went to the grocery store.”

Diego grunted and moved into a half-squat like a wrestler getting ready to grapple. “Because I’m an inconsiderate dick. Be pissed about it.”

Vanya sucked in a breath, her heart thrumming in her chest. Okay. Okay. The worst things about Diego. She could do this.

“Ready?”

“Yeah. I—yeah.”

“You’re mad?”

“Sure. Sure, sure, sure.”

“Good. Now— _Come at me.”_

“Staying angry at Dad just gives him power over you,” she blurted out.

In the span of about five seconds, Diego’s face shifted from confusion to anger then back to confusion. Behind him, Luther stood stock-still and expressionless, as though he was playing dead to ward off a bear attack.

Diego straightened up. “Not what I meant by ‘come at me,’ but okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Vanya said meekly. “I just blanked, and—” She gestured to her mouth. _“That_ came out.”

“Yeah?” He eyed her up and down, something sharp and wounded in his gaze. “Sounds to me like you’ve been thinking that for a while.”

She shrugged, wishing she had Five’s ability to move backwards in time. “I guess so? It’s just—You get kind of emotional—” Luther cringed in the background—“and there’s nothing wrong with that, but… to him, it’s ammunition.”

“I don’t get fucking _emotional,_ I just get mad,” Diego said (emotionally). “And why the hell shouldn’t I? After everything he’s done, why should I let it go and forgive him?”

“No, I didn’t mean it like that!” Vanya hastened to assure him. “You don’t have to forgive him. I only meant that if he can see you’re upset, he’s going to find a way to make it worse, and…” She spread her hands in a plea for understanding “…you play into it. Maybe. A little.”

He bristled. “So, what, now it’s _my_ fault?!”

Luther cast an imploring look upwards. They hadn’t been raised with any kind of religion, but it almost looked as though he was praying. Or hoping for the rapture, maybe.

“No!” said Vanya, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I—It’s hard to watch the way Dad talks to you, okay? It always has been. He’s a jerk, and he doesn’t deserve to make you feel bad about yourself, because you’re—you’re pretty great.”

The brittle defensiveness bled out of Diego’s face by degrees. It had never taken much to set him off, but she always forgot how little it took, too, to make amends. He was not nearly as complicated a person as he tried to make himself seem.

“Great how?”

“Um… what?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “You said I’m great,” he said gruffly. “Great how?”

Oh. He was also not nearly as subtle a person as he liked to pretend. This wasn’t so much fishing for compliments as throwing dynamite in the water and waiting for them to land in his boat.

“You can be really nice,” she said. “Sometimes. And you can be funny, sometimes, too. And… um…”

“You’re good at making connections with people,” Luther supplied. “When you don’t just piss them off immediately, anyway. Because you actually care about everybody, and people can see that. You’re… genuine, I guess.”

He regarded Diego with a contemplative look. “Also I like your hair. It looks good long.”

Diego fingered a lock of it, thoughtful, and then seemed to decide that this had been sufficient praise.

“I don’t know why I keep letting him get under my skin.” He looked at the floor, mouth screwed up into a self-conscious kind of frown. “He’s just such a fuckwad, and he doesn’t even _care.”_

Vanya hugged her elbows. “He’d never going to care,” she told him, as gently as she could. “He’s never going to say he’s sorry.”

“I know,” Diego said, but his brows were knit together as if it was something he just couldn’t make sense of.

Vanya had felt like that, once. In what fair world could a father treat his children with such contempt and cruelty, make them hate themselves and one another, and then walk away from the mess he’d made without remorse or repercussions?

She had come to see that her error was thinking the world should be fair in the first place. But Diego, defender of the defenseless and brave to the point of stupidity, had always had a driving need to fight injustices where he found them.

It was his finest quality, in truth.

She took a step closer. “I like your hair, too,” she said in a soft voice. “It just looks right on you.”

Diego shot her a smile. Faltering, but genuine. “Thanks. I think I’m going to keep it like this.”

Vanya took another step, and he nudged a foot towards her, and they both started the awkward, hesitant business of opening their arms to someone they loved but rarely told about it.

She slapped him across the face.

“Prison rules?” she said weakly as Luther’s mouth fell open in horror.

Diego looked down at her, eyes alight with wonder as he pressed a hand to the spot she’d just hit.

“I taught you so good,” he said in awed pride.

{}{}{}{}{}

Five leaned over the bathroom sink and filled his hands with cold water to splash over his face. It felt purifying, and for a second he thought he might have jarred his way back to sobriety—then he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror.

No, he realized, looking away fast. No, no, he was still tripping. If he had always looked like the disjointed pieces of a Picasso painting, someone would have pointed it out to him by now.

Vanya was on the other side of the door when he opened it.

“Hey,” she said. “I heard you coming out of your bedroom. How’s everything going?”

It was horrifyingly bright in the hallway, and the edges of her body blurred into the light.

“Good,” he managed.

She peered closer at his face. “You’re drooling,” she pointed out uneasily.

He dragged the back of a hand across his mouth. It didn’t seem to matter how much he spit out or swallowed, there was an inexhaustible well of saliva someplace inside of him. His own renewable resource.

“Imagine if there was someone with the superpower to sweat oil,” he mused out loud.

Vanya didn’t answer for a long moment. “Do you want me to sit with you for a while?” she asked, her voice kind. “Some company might be nice.”

There was a sudden pressure in his head, followed by vibration. “Five?” It was Wyatt, but he sounded far away, like he was calling to him from somewhere outside. “Are you done in the bathroom? I don’t think either of us wants me to see your junk.”

“I have to go,” he told Vanya, turning back towards the bedroom. The hallway got longer as he looked at it. “I’ll be back with new intel shortly, I think. Tell everyone to stay here in the house to wait for it.”

“Uh… okay? That’s a no to company, then?”

“Yes. No. Yes and no.” He waved a frustrated hand over his shoulder at her. She knew what he meant. “Good afternoon.”

“Five, are you sure that you’re alr—”

But he was already closing the bedroom door behind him.

He leaned against it for a second to gather his bearings.

“You good?” Wyatt asked. “Everything in your pants? I’m coming in.”

The pressure and the vibration intensified as he bored his way through Five’s skull.

“I’ve got Viv waiting,” he said. “She’s kind of pissed and also she’s at her job, so we have to keep this quick, alright?”

That was fine. All he wanted was confirmation of what Wyatt had already told him.

“Cool. Just a head’s up, this is going to be noisy. I can keep you from hearing all _my_ thoughts, but you’ll hear hers and she’ll hear yours, so just… I don’t know, do your best not to think anything nuts, I guess.”

 _I will,_ Five agreed silently.

“Okay. Ready? One, two, three—Here she is!”

There was no physical sensation, only a sudden burst of sound. It was just loud enough to be distracting—the vague murmurings of a person speaking in another room, a whisper a shade too low to be intelligible—and then a woman’s cool voice rose over top of it all to say, “Bonjour.”

Oh.

Five frowned. Did she speak English?

“I do,” said Vivienne, but there was a faint mutter of _‘_ _Tres américain’_ behind it.

“I was just wondering,” Five said in annoyance. “I can’t turn off my thoughts, you know.”

“I cannot, either,” she replied. “But it is you who says we must meet, and so I think it is you who must try.”

“Guys, come on,” Wyatt begged. “You promised you wouldn’t do this.”

All at once, there was a spasm of pain behind Five’s left eye, and right on its heels came agitated yelling in a language he’d never heard before.

He flattened his back against the door as a flurry of startled French echoed in his mind. “What is _that?!”_

“Oh, it’s Nima!” said Wyatt, apparently tickled at the arrival of this hysterical stranger. “Hi, Nima! You can stop screaming, it’s just me!”

Five felt a twinge of relief he didn’t think was coming from him at the sound of Wyatt’s voice. The panicked shouting simmered down to a manageable hum.

“Bonjour, Nima,” said Vivienne.

His response was the verbal equivalent of a question mark.

Five drew in a ragged breath. Was this the Sherpa? Why was _he_ a part of this?

“Oh, he’s just kind of in and out,” Wyatt explained happily. “My reception with him is real spotty because he lives way the hell up in the mountains someplace, and also because I don’t know what language he speaks? Nima’s cool as shit, though. He’s got _so many goats.”_

The word seemed to trigger something, because Five saw a sudden flash of a brown, weathered man’s hand squeezing an udder.

“Yeah, there’s one!” said Wyatt, excited. “Ha, look at it.”

Five swallowed another mouthful of saliva. Did this guy also have powers? Christ, how many of them _were_ there?

“He does!” said Wyatt. “I think he can control electricity sort of, but all I’ve ever seen him do with it is recharge dead batteries. And I guess there’s at least one more of us, because there’s still the lady who’s going to die.”

That was a grim segue. Effective, but grim.

“Segue,” Vivienne repeated. “I do not know this word.”

“It’s a scooter for dweebs,” Wyatt told her. “Anyways, we need to move this along because I can’t hold a connection between you guys for much longer. Plus I’m hungry.”

“You want to finish this so you can look at goats,” she accused.

“More than one thing can be true,” Wyatt countered. “Go on, Viv. Do your thing.”

The noise of her mind quieted, as though she was thinking very hard about one particular thing. Five tried to drown out his background thoughts, as well, but was frustrated to find that he could only think harder about goats.

“I will show you what I saw,” she said to Five. “Close your eyes, _s’il vous plaite.”_

Wait, what? What was about to—

An image of the front of their house flashed through his mind. The gate hanging off its hinges, weeds spilling over the walkway. Before he had time to adjust to this turn of events, he was seeing the little leather book with ‘Appointments’ in glittering gold, held by a hand he recognized as Vanya’s. Then there was _him,_ holding the book up to the basement light, a little glassy-eyed from a night of drinking, and suddenly the basement was gone.

The air was full of smoke. The scene was curiously soundless, but there was a smell, the rancid, greasy scent of burning human flesh. Through the haze, he could see people standing in a half-circle. The faces were impossible to make out, but he saw Luther’s unmistakable, hulking build and a lanky form wearing a cowboy hat before his focus was pulled inexorably to the horror in the center of the room.

It was a feminine figure. Mercifully obscured by smoke, one final dignity in death. There was a light breaking from her chest. Not a ‘little sparkle’ at all, but harsh and white, and it did not go out to die along with her.

It floated slowly up into the air. Hung in suspension for a moment over the body, wreathed by wisps of smoke. And then hurtled fast and furious towards the onlookers, a miniature comet pulled into the orbit of its next vessel.

The vision ended before it made impact. Five looked around at the swimming walls of his bedroom. He was dimly surprised to find that at some point, he had sat down on the floor.

Nima was speaking again. The specific meaning of the words was anyone’s guess, but _‘what the FUCK’_ was a relatable sentiment in every language.

“It’s cool, Nima!” Wyatt assured him. “We were just looking at the future. You’re fine!”

While he tried to calm him down, Vivienne’s voice cut across the chaos in Five’s direction. “Now you have seen it,” she said. “You are satisfied?”

She sounded so calm. Five’s brain had just been put in a jar and shaken up, and here she was ready to return to work.

Something, he thought, had to be wrong with one of them.

“Non,” she said. “I see these things all my life. I do not worry about them. They do not come true, much of the time. I only tell Wyatt about this one so he knows to be careful, because we are friends.”

“Take a deep breath,” Wyatt was urging Nima. “Everything’s Gucci. Pet your goat, you’ll feel better.”

Five dragged his hands through his hair, trying to get his thoughts in order. Maybe most of the things Vivienne saw never came to be, but what about the stuff that did? How could a person not live in a perpetual state of panic, knowing there might be forest fires and terrorist attacks and train derailments lurking around every corner?

“Because these things will happen, or they will not,” she said tranquilly. “You have a saying in English—‘Broken clocks are right twice a day.’ This is how I am, I think. When I am wrong, it is not a surprise. And when I am right, it is only by chance.”

Something ugly twisted in Five’s chest. It was easy to say that while she sat safe in a world other people had stopped from ending. Let him throw up his hands and say ‘Oh, it’s not _my_ job to save humanity,’ and she’d change her tune fast.

“This is _idiome_ in English,” she said, “but I think I understand. I would not change my tune, and I cannot change the future to what I like. Neither can you.”

Wyatt and Nima were trading mental images of farm animals back and forth, and the walls were starting to melt again. Five made a concerted effort to push it all to the back of his mind.

“I already did, actually,” he told Vivienne coolly, “but I guess not everyone is up to the task. I won’t hold it against you.”

A picture of what might have been a yak whizzed through his consciousness.

“What’s that?” Wyatt’s distant voice asked. “Do you ride it or milk it?”

“You have changed the future, yes,” Vivienne said, in that same even tone, “but you do not know how. It is impossible to know. Once you decide to…”

He heard her sorting through words as she searched for the right one, tossing aside ‘enter’ and ‘open.’

“…To put your hands in these things, they have already changed,” she said. “If I see I will cut my finger preparing beef, it is not as simple as to say ‘We will have fish for dinner instead, and now it will not happen.’ Now everything is different, and _anything_ can happen, and still I may cut my finger. You see? It is pointless.”

It was funny. He had been expecting Vivienne to be a wailing, desperate Cassandra type, but she really didn’t give a fuck about anything, did she? Cassandra had given up and embraced nihilism and sat around cafes in Paris eating baguettes. His life would have been so different if he’d had her power instead of his own—but it didn’t matter.

She was wrong. He was the master of his own destiny, and so was she, even if she was refusing to take control of it.

“You say this,” she told him, “but in the future _I_ saw, you could not stop the end of the world, although you knew it was coming.”

The rainbow static had dissipated after Five’s trip to the bathroom, but it came rushing back now. It filled his vision with a million flickering points of light that vanished the second he tried to focus on them, a shifting, treacherous curtain between him and reality.

“You—knew about that?” he asked with a crack in his voice.

“Yes,” she said. “In April, I saw you try to stop it and fail. You were an old man in my sight, but Sunny says you are one and the same.”

Five’s brain was splitting down the middle. Just… fucking _what?_

Nima said something unintelligible in the background, and showed them all a mental picture of a boy driving a pair of oxen to plough a field.

“Oh, is that your son?” asked Wyatt. “I don’t have any kids, but I have a motorcycle. Want to see that?”

Five shifted on the bed. “But we _did_ stop the end of the world!” he said in frustration and a strange, mounting sense of desperation. _“Obviously_ we did, or we wouldn’t be here talking right now!”

“Maybe so,” Vivienne said with infuriating calm. “But I am not God, Number Five, and neither are you. We cannot see every _ondulation_ we make. Perhaps there is some key you do not know of that caused the world to end. Perhaps it is still here now because on the first day of April, you were not. And perhaps you are right, and I owe you my thanks, but it is not for us to know.”

…He and Vivienne were arguing about two sides of the same coin. How many times, he wondered, had he said similar things to his siblings? That every decision they made, every person they spoke to, every breath they took, was going to change something in the future?

The difference between them was that he’d been insisting that all of it mattered. In Vivienne’s philosophy, if all of it mattered, then none of it did.

Five felt, all of a sudden, claustrophobic inside of his own body. Like he needed to take a step back out of this prison of flesh and this incidental place he had wound up to see the bigger picture of where he really was, and how he’d gotten here.

“Uh… Five?” Wyatt asked. “You okay? Did I miss something, you guys?”

“You are upset,” Vivienne observed dispassionately. “You should not be. It was not my intent.”

Oh, what did intent matter? He hadn’t intended to get trapped in a wasteland and Vanya hadn’t intended to blow up the moon and their father probably hadn’t intended to screw them all up as badly as he had, but the end result was all the same and everything was totally fucking _pointless._

Five struggled to draw in a breath. Fuck, fuck, thirty years alone among roaches and ash, and this was what he had to show for it! Stuck in an extratemporal limbo that might only exist because he’d been a day late to his own Apocalypse!

“Hey,” Wyatt said urgently. The background hum of French and Nima had vanished, and his voice sounded far away. “Five, you need to calm down. I think you’re having a panic attack, dude. Try to take another breath, okay? You’re alright, I promise.”

He was not alright, and he saw now that he never had been. How many versions of the six of them existed? Were they all trying to outrun the end of the world? The solution, maybe, had _always_ been to maroon themselves outside of time, excise themselves like a cancerous blot from the face of the universe, because fate was inescapable when you had a place in it.

Here, they had no place. They simply were. No past, no future.

Only this eternal, unbearable present.

“Five,” Wyatt begged, “Five, please, you’re…”

His voice faded away, drowned out by the howling wind of Five’s memory.

He huddled into himself, face against his knees. That was what the wind had sounded like in the Apocalypse. Nothing left for it to rail against, just endless open space, like it, too, was screaming into the void that it was _hopeless, hopeless, hopeless!_ because nothing mattered anymore.

_I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead, I think I made you up inside my—_

A softer, sweeter sound sliced through the shrieking despair. A violin. Minuet in G.

Five raised his head slowly, and then was on his feet and crashing through the bedroom door before he even had time to think about it.

“Vanya,” he called, half-tripping down the stairs. “Vanya, I’m here. I’m home.”

She was in the living room, bow poised over the strings. An image straight out of memory, the way he always saw her when he thought of her.

“I’m home,” he repeated.

The room was full of light and his eyes were full of water and her face was a blur, but he searched it anyway as he stumbled up in front of her.

“Are you glad?” he asked yearningly. “Are you glad I came back?”

“Oh, _Five.”_ She held out her arms and he fell into them, reveling in the feel of someone else’s heart beating against his chest.

“You have no idea how much,” she murmured, and it was louder than the wind at the end of the world had ever been.

{}{}{}{}{}

Hours later, Five sat cross-legged on the floor between Luther’s feet while Klaus painted on his arm with Allison’s dollar store eyeshadow.

It had taken a long time to calm him down, and even longer to draw out the full story of his conversation with Wyatt and Vivienne and Nima. It had answered a lot of Allison’s questions, but there were new ones taking root in her mind all the time.

Klaus finished his drawing and released Five’s arm. “Voila!” he said. “A star. Now you’re beautiful.”

Five drew it close to his face to scrutinize it with his blown-out pupils. He made no comment, but his mouth pursed into a tight little frown.

Luther leaned down and kneaded Five’s left shoulder. “If you don’t like it, we can wash it off,” he reminded him.

That seemed to wake him up out of his stupor.

“You might remember I’m not four years old,” he scoffed, then thrust his other arm at Klaus. “Draw another one so they match.”

While Klaus got to work, Allison eased back into her seat at the kitchen table, keeping one watchful eye on the scene in the living room.

“What I’m wondering is how all these people found one another,” she said in a low voice to Vanya. She blew on her cup of tea. “Sunny and Noor worked together at the Commission. That makes sense. But how’d they find Wyatt and this French woman? And how did Wyatt find a guy in the Himalayas he can’t even communicate with? It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Vanya offered her a lopsided smile over her own mug of tea. “It’s like they have their own secret superhuman society and didn’t invite us.”

“I don’t know that _I’d_ invite us, either,” Allison confessed.

They came with an entire train car full of baggage. It amazed her sometimes that people like Vinny and Ray kept them around, because who really wanted to be friends with that?

Diego, who was sitting on the kitchen counter, kicked one foot against the cabinet.

 _“I_ don’t know that I’d want to get invited,” he argued, frowning down at his wood carving. “Sunny tricked me and Klaus, Noor attacked you and Vee, and Vivienne sounds like a bitch. They can all go jump in a fucking lake.”

Vanya murmured her agreement into her drink.

Allison was in agreement on Sunny and especially on Noor, but she wasn’t so ready to write off Vivienne. It had been deeply unsettling to see Five the crying kind of upset instead of the yelling kind—assuming he even had been crying, because he was also sweating and drooling and just generally very wet—but she might have had a few good points. Vis-à-vis ‘you can’t control the future, so quit trying.’

Just an opinion, though.

Diego’s knife paused for a moment over the wood. “The Sherpa guy sounded okay, though,” he said. “Nima, or whatever. I’d meet him, if he wanted to meet us.”

She rolled her eyes. Diego knew his name. The very first question he’d had after Five finished the story was if he had ever climbed Mount Everest, followed by ‘why didn’t you ask,’ and then ‘well, can you find out?’ Focusing on the important things.

“That should be green,” Five announced from the living room. She turned to see him pointing at Klaus’s latest piece of artwork. “Green.”

Klaus licked the q-tip he was using as a brush. “There’s no green,” he said. “I’ve got pink, purple, and blue.”

“Well, there _should_ be green.” Five frowned at his arm in displeasure. “Now it doesn’t look right.”

“Do you want some more orange juice?” asked Luther. He stroked Five’s hair, which he’d liked ten minutes ago, but now he ducked his head down into his neck like a threatened turtle. “I went back to the store for you. There’s a whole other carton.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Five snapped.

Klaus got to his feet and stretched as Luther withdrew his hand.

“I want some orange juice,” he said, yawning exaggeratedly. “It’s so fresh. And orange. And juicy. Yum, yum, orange juice!”

Five watched him sashay into the kitchen, eyes narrowed to slits.

“…I want some, too,” he muttered in defeat.

Klaus shot him finger guns and pirouetted to the fridge.

“So what are we doing now?” Diego asked, leaning to one side to let Klaus get a glass from the cabinet behind him. “Are we waiting for Wyatt to get more information from someplace, or what?”

Vanya took a quick sip of her tea, but Allison saw the unease that flashed over her face first. She couldn’t blame her for being wary to speak to him again.

“I don’t know,” said Five. He sounded uncharacteristically at peace with that. Not knowing things usually drove him straight up the wall. “We can figure it out tomorrow. There are more important things to discuss.”

Allison watched him scoot away from Luther so he was sitting to face all of them.

She frowned. He didn’t mean…

“I’m almost finished with my equations to move sideways in time,” he said. “I have been for a while.”

Diego’s knife clattered to the floor. “What?” he burst out. “Jesus fucking Christ, Five, why is this the first we’re hearing about it?”

Five turned his black-eyed gaze to him, blissfully, weirdly calm. “Because you might not all want to come,” he said, his voice steady, “and I wasn’t ready for us to split up yet. It was selfish, I know, but I’ve never pretended I’m not.”

Vanya made a soft noise in the back of her throat, and Luther sat forward in his seat.

“Oh, Five,” he said gently, “you’re not selfish, that’s so understandable to—”

He held up a hand for silence. “I am,” he said without heat. “I’m only telling you all this now because I’m high. I don’t know how long I would have waited otherwise.”

Allison let out a breath. She wanted to be angry at him, but didn’t have the heart. Claire was waiting for her, somewhere out there, but Five had never had anyone except them, and he had waited a long, long time for them all to be together again.

“Why would we split up?” Klaus asked. He was clutching a drinking glass in one hand and the open carton of orange juice in the other, and his voice sounded so small that Allison could tell he already knew the answer.

“It’s dangerous,” said Five. “I can’t promise you anything, about what we might find or what might happen. There’s a small chance we could jump ourselves out of existence. There’s a good chance we could jump into a third Apocalypse. I just don’t know. So if any of you want to stay here, where it’s safe, I’ll miss you. But I won’t try to talk you out of it.”

None of them spoke, because what was there to say? Luther glanced at her, and Klaus stared at the floor, and Diego balled his hands into fists as if he wanted to punch the space-time continuum into doing his bidding. Vanya’s eyes dropped to the table and stayed there. Five sat there on the floor, looking weirdly dignified in his underpants and utterly, utterly high.

Allison cleared her throat. It felt scratchy, all of a sudden. “We don’t have to make any decisions tonight,” she said, with all the lightness she could muster. “There’s still all this superpower theft murder stuff to deal with, anyhow.”

Diego pointed at her. “Yes,” he agreed with a note of relief. “We have to see that through first. Good call.”

Klaus nodded, then poured Five’s orange juice with hands that only shook a little.

Allison sipped her tea. At some point, they needed to address the fact that it was easier for them as a group to face a life-threatening crisis than it was to have a serious conversation. She was no psychologist, but that was probably a bad thing.

Five finished half of his juice in one swallow, then contemplated the glass.

“Here.” He held it out to Luther. “Have some.”

“Oh. No thanks.”

“No, try it,” Five insisted. “It’s good. Amazing, actually.”

Luther’s lips quirked up at the corners, seeming charmed by his insistence. “Okay, sure.”

He accepted the glass from Five’s hand, and started to raise it to take a drink, and then, in a flash of blue, Five was standing there knuckle-deep in his mouth.

“Mmguh!” Luther protested, jerking away.

“Your teeth feel the same as mine,” Five marveled.

Allison started to laugh, but was interrupted by the chiming of the cell phone. She hopped up and grabbed it from the wall outlet, and… oh.

“Vinny?” Diego asked.

“Uh, no.” She frowned. “It’s a message from some random number.”

It went off again in her hand.

_hi this is Wyatt I got ur number from 5’s head sorry if thats wierd i dont have any energy 4 telepathy left_

Goosebumps prickled Allison’s arms. She’d had Wyatt in her mind, but he somehow felt more real now, knowing that there was a live person on the other end.

_I hope 5 is ok. I talked to sunny and noor. They said theyll be cool abt everything if u guys will be_

“Who is it?” Vanya asked.

“Well…”

The phone beeped a third time.

_They want to meet tomoro. Is noon at ur house ok?_


	12. Chapter Eleven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which enemies become friends. (?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slower updates! Half our department is out of work to quarantine, and I am a sucker who cannot ignore the daily text message guilt trips to pick up more shifts. I estimate that by this summer, I'll either have made enough OT to retire 40 years early, or I'll hate my job so much I'll quit and go be a hermit in the woods someplace. One of the two.

It was 11:45 a.m., and the Hargreeves were all making their final preparations before Sunny and Noor arrived.

Vanya had spent the past three hours cleaning the house, and Luther had spent them stress-eating corn flakes. Allison had put on her best outfit, styled her hair, and now sat posed for maximum casualness in the armchair, watching the minutes tick by on the cellphone’s clock. Diego had been unusually quiet all morning, but on close inspection, he was mouthing things to himself, the way he did sometimes when he wanted to be sure he wouldn’t trip over important words when it came time to say them out loud. Five was strategizing, and Klaus was… helping.

“Klaus,” Five said testily, “I’m not going to tell you this again—DO NOT ask Noor to do celebrity impressions.”

Klaus swung his legs up onto the sofa to get out of Vanya’s way. She was sweeping the rug in front of it, seeing as they had no vacuum.

“It’s an icebreaker,” he insisted. “You know, to make things less awkward, since we’re all supposed to be friends now or whatever.”

He caught a stray sock Vanya tossed at his face.

“Plus, I do an amazing Swedish Chef. If they have _any_ kind of appreciation for the fine arts, they’ll love it.”

Allison glanced up from the phone while Five glared at him.

“We don’t need to be friends,” she said. “We’re working towards a mutual goal of nobody getting murdered. That’s the extent of it.”

Diego pivoted away from the kitchen cabinets, where he was hiding ‘just in case’ knives. He didn’t formally state his agreement, but his face darkened and he mouthed ‘Fuck you both’ with feeling.

In the living room, Vanya stooped down to sweep rug crud into the dustpan. “I think this will go easier if we’re polite, though,” she said to Allison. “I mean. We don’t have to be _friends_ friends, but… we should at least be friend- _ly.”_

Instead of responding, Allison examined her fingernails.

“Oh, I know!” Klaus said, raising his hand for absolutely no reason. “We should have lunch together. Like, to symbolize a breaking of the bread, and uh… lunch.”

Five scowled, but before he could begin his hundredth lecture of the day on how to negotiate with retired assassins, Luther took a heavy step over the threshold of the kitchen into the living room.

“I am not giving Noor anything to eat ever again,” he vowed solemnly.

Klaus twirled the sock he held like a lasso, seemingly at a loss for how to approach a Luther who held grudges.

“Uh… how about snacks, then?” he suggested. “A cheese and cracker platter? Some crudité?”

Luther stared at him, stonefaced. Klaus wilted.

“You know what, let me go see what’s in the fridge and I’ll take care of it,” he said, rolling off the sofa. “Hope you all like whole celery.”

As he plodded into the kitchen, Five jumped next to Allison and leaned over to see the time on the phone.

“Five minutes,” he announced, then reflexively smoothed his hair back. He straightened up to glance around at them all.

“Alright,” he said, “listen. This will go much smoother if you let me do all the talking—”

Allison rolled her eyes at the ceiling and Diego shook his head with a huff. Someday, Five was going to have to learn that ‘Sit at the kids’ table, the grown-ups are talking’ was not an actionable plan.

“—but I already know you’re all going to say whatever pops into your heads anyway, so let’s just set some ground rules.”

He pointed to Klaus, who held up his hands like he was surrendering to the police.

“If you absolutely can’t stop yourself from doing a celebrity impression,” he said, “at least don’t do one of the fucking Muppets. They’re not celebrities. They’re celebrity puppets.”

“Same difference,” Klaus argued.

 _“Big_ difference.” He swung to Vanya next. “Noor threw you through a glass table. When you start getting the urge to make nice with them, keep that in mind.”

She frowned as Five fixed his sights on Diego. “You, stop worrying about stuttering. The more you think about it, the more likely you are to do it.”

Anger quickened in Diego’s face, but then, as fast it had come, it disappeared. He gave Five a begrudging nod.

“You…” Five trailed off as he turned to Allison, pursing his lips in thought.

“We’re actually on the same page,” he decided after a moment, “so… do what you want, I guess.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” she said in surprise.

“And Luther.”

Five studied him with a keen eye as he rifled through the box of corn flakes. “You answer the door,” he said finally. “Try to look intimidating.”

Luther poured a fistful of cereal into his mouth. “Okay.”

Vanya, who was emptying the dustpan into the garbage, peered around him towards the front door.

“A car just pulled up.”

The six of them held their collective breath. It was quiet enough to hear a murmur of voices outside, and footsteps on the walkway—and a knock.

Luther crossed the room and curled his fingers around the knob. He paused, for half a second, to look over his shoulder at them all.

No going back now.

“Hello again, Hargreeves family,” said the unfamiliar woman on their front stoop.

She was around thirty, with dark skin and pale eyes, and she was holding a takeout container with two pink, iced drinks in it. Luther took an uncertain backwards step, and she breezed in past him.

“Lovely to see you, as always,” the stranger said, eyes roving around the room. Her gaze came to rest on the demolished coffee table, which Klaus had attempted to salvage by duct taping cardboard over the metal frame.

“You’ve done some redecorating since the last time I was here. _Love_ that.”

Five’s jaw ticked. “Noor,” he said. It was equal parts guess, greeting, and accusation. “Where’s Sunny?”

“Here.” She was standing in the doorway, and did a sweep of the room before stepping inside. “Hello, everyone. Number Five.”

Allison inclined her head at her without rising from her seat, a queen accepting her due, while Diego mean-mugged them both from the kitchen. Luther shut the door, casting a longing glance at his abandoned box of corn flakes.

Sunny gestured to the couch. “Is it alright if I sit?”

Five watched her through narrowed eyes as Noor sidled up to Allison. “Go right ahead.”

“Here.” Noor pulled one of the drinks free from the holder and held it out. “A peace offering, for smashing your face into the floor.”

Allison eyed it for a second, mistrustful, before schooling her expression into something more neutral. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I stay away from sugary drinks.”

She offered Noor a sweet smile. “Just looking at them turns my stomach.”

Noor pulled the cup back. “And here I was worried there might be hard feelings between us,” they said. They sounded amused.

“We owe you all an apology,” Sunny said abruptly.

From her spot on the couch, she looked to each of them. To Luther, still standing by the front door and wearing the expression of someone trying to negotiate their way out of a hostage situation. To Diego, tongue-tied and scowling amidst the cheery pinks and yellows of their kitchen. To Allison, who met her gaze with open suspicion, and to Klaus, as he peeked cautiously over the open door of the fridge, to Five and the smoldering anger in his eyes, and to Vanya, who was doing her best impression of a piece of furniture.

“I had hoped,” Sunny said, “that if we found the Handler’s book before you did, then none of what Vivienne saw would happen. But I see now we should have been honest with you from the beginning, because we’ve just dragged you deeper into it.”

She sat forward in her seat. “I’m sorry for that,” she said, her husky voice tinged with real remorse. “I know we haven’t gotten off to a good start. But I do hope we can put it behind us, and work together from here on out.”

The Hargreeves had each had their own expectations for how this would go. Tension was a given, and hostility was likely. Threats—maybe. Yelling—well, when _wasn’t_ one of them yelling? In the absolute best case scenario, they’d come to a shaky truce, and in the worst, there would be no survivors of this meeting.

None of them had been banking on an actual olive branch.

Allison drew in a long breath through her nose and reached over to pluck one of the drinks from the holder in Noor’s hands.

“Thank you,” she said curtly.

“Anytime.” Noor angled their head to the side to see Vanya’s hiding spot in the kitchen. “The other one’s for you. Guaranteed spit-and-poison free.”

Vanya looked sidelong at Five. After a second of hesitation, he gave her a nod.

Luther took a seat on the stairs, and Diego surreptitiously slipped a knife out of his sleeve and into his back pocket. Klaus emerged from the fridge at long last, a bottle of ranch dressing in hand.

“We have a lot to discuss,” said Sunny. “But first, can I see the book?”

{}{}{}{}{}

Diego watched Sunny page through the appointment book, his tongue feeling like a lead weight in his mouth.

After Five’s report of his conversation with Wyatt and Vivienne last night, his first thought had been that if they were going to kill someone, chances were good it was in self-defense. And he’d been about to point this out, but then he’d had a second thought—there was _one_ woman with superpowers who they’d already had to defend themselves against.

That left him in a quandary. He knew he should still speak up, because it was the only responsible, logical thing to do—but what if he was wrong?

He was wrong about things all the time. He’d thought he would never feel about anyone else the way he’d felt about Eudora, and that cutting his family out of his life was the recipe for happiness. He’d never in a million years guessed that he _would_ fall in love again, and that what his siblings thought of her would be _really important_ to him, and that the idea of his girl and his family trying to destroy one another would feel worse than a knife to the gut.

Also sausages. Just that morning, he’d proven to be very wrong about how long it took to cook a frozen sausage.

Sunny closed the book and handed it off to Noor, who was perched on the back of the sofa to read over her shoulder.

“I figured the Handler had a master list somewhere,” she said, “but I didn’t expect it to be so long.”

Luther stirred in his spot on the stairs. “We were thinking she might have been trying to put together her own army,” he said, darting a glance in Five’s direction as though to confirm he was allowed to speak. “Of people with superpowers.”

Sunny dipped her head. “She was. I started watching her where I could, after she brought Noor to work for the Commission.” Her mouth twisted at the memory. “The odds just seemed so small.”

Five leaned forward in his seat, face tight. “How many did she find?”

“A few,” said Sunny. “Wyatt, but Noor and I got to him before he agreed to join up. He played dumb well enough to convince her he didn’t have any special abilities after all.”

Noor flipped a page in the book. “He wasn’t playing,” they muttered.

“Vivienne, too,” said Sunny. “We warned her to hide her powers better before the Handler could make a move. There were others she looked into, but—” She shrugged. “Most of them turned out to be ordinary people.”

On the other side of the room, Vanya blanched at the word.

Five pursed his lips. “So, what?” he asked in clipped tones. “You’re supposed to be our lord and savior? The superhero who saves other superheroes?”

“Thank you, Super Jesus,” Klaus called from the kitchen. Noor snorted.

Instead of rising to the bait, Sunny leaned back into her seat. “I only thought that if there was anyone who shouldn’t have their own superhuman army,” she said, with unnerving calm, “it was the Handler.”

“Yes,” agreed Allison, “that sounds reasonable.”

She put just a touch of stress on the word ‘reasonable,’ throwing a pointed glance in Five’s direction, but, predictably, he paid her no mind.

“Well, you did a bang-up job of it,” he snapped. “You two, me, and Lila Pitts. Sounds like a pretty good start to world domination, or whatever the hell she was planning on.”

Diego choked at Lila’s name. Luther threw him a questioning look, but he forced his attention back to Sunny.

“She needed to find _you,”_ she was telling Five. “You had to try to stop the Apocalypse, and from what Vivienne said, you had to be at the Commission in order to do it.”

She strummed her fingers on the arm of the sofa, the lines around her mouth deepening into a frown. “I do regret not reaching Lila in time. The Handler had figured out I was working against her by then, I think—I don’t reckon she’d have gone after a child otherwise. Can’t imagine she was eager to raise one.”

“But on the plus side, she lost interest in the rest of us real quick after she got her herself a universal key,” said Noor. “If you should thank anyone, it’s Lila. _There’s_ your Super Jesus.”

Klaus started humming ‘Ave Maria,’ then stopped when Diego threw him a look dirty enough to poison a well.

Five crossed his arms over his chest, still fuming. “I don’t suppose it ever occurred to you to tell _me_ any of this,” he said icily, and from the corner of his eye, Diego saw Allison’s face scrunch up in exasperation.

Sunny scrutinized him for a moment, her expression carefully blank. “I wasn’t sure we could trust you,” she said.

Noor barked out a laugh. “That’s the diplomatic answer,” they said. “The truth is, we both thought you and the Handler were sleeping together.”

Five started spluttering as Vanya paled and Klaus gasped over the salaciousness of it all.

Sunny twisted in her seat. “Noor,” she chastised.

“Oh, come, on, it was just a dumb misunderstanding,” they said with a wave of their hand. “Someday, we’ll look back at it and laugh.”

They glanced at Five, who appeared to be torn between having an aneurysm and launching himself into outer space, fueled by pure rage.

“For me, that day is today,” said Noor. “I guess for you it’ll come later.”

Allison scratched at her cheek to hide her smile, and Luther leaned over the railing on the stairs.

“But you weren’t though, right?” he asked Five urgently. “You _weren’t_ sleeping together.”

“NO!” he burst out. “What—How could—What the fuck is _wrong_ with the two of you?!”

Sunny shrugged. “She was flirtatious with you,” she said, a note of apology in her voice.

“She kept touching your face and following you into bathrooms,” added Noor. They locked eyes with Vanya, who froze on the spot. “Be honest. What would you have thought?”

“I… uh…”

Vanya took a desperate sip of her drink. “Does this have mango in it?” she asked weakly.

Five’s face darkened, and in spite of his own worries, Diego smiled to himself. He loved the shit out of the smug little prick, but nothing warmed his heart like seeing him get taken down a peg.

Allison cleared her throat to compose herself, then shifted in her chair to address Sunny.

“I don’t know what the etiquette is around asking this,” she said, “but what are _your_ powers?”

“Oh. I don’t have any.”

Diego blinked, surprised. His confusion was mirrored in Allison’s face.

“You—Really?” she asked.

Sunny shook her head. “I just had the bad luck of being born on October 1st, 1989.” She offered them a ghost of a smile. “The Handler started vetting more seriously after recruiting me.”

Huh. She had no reason to lie about it, and yet, Diego’s gut told him she was. He snuck a glance at Noor, but their face was impassive.

Klaus stepped into the living room then, clearing his throat, his brows knit together in concern. All eyes turned to him, waiting for what he had to say.

“Fire,” he announced pleasantly.

Allison sprang out of her seat as the smoke detector started screaming.

“Jesus, Klaus, what are you making?” she cried. “How much oil did you use?!”

“Tater tots, and an amount that seemed appropriate at the time,” he said defensively as she tossed the lid on top of the flaming pan from halfway across the room. “You shouldn’t be surprised, to be honest. I think it’s been well-established that I can’t cook.”

Sunny rose from her sofa while Vanya grabbed their broom and began smashing the reset button on the living room smoke detector.

“I’m stepping outside for a cigarette,” she said. “Be right back.”

Five stood as well. “I’ll join you.”

“Is this a bad time to mention we’re out of ketchup?” Klaus yelled over the shriek of the alarms.

Allison whirled away from the window she was forcing open and pointed to the living room. “GO SIT DOWN.”

He squashed himself next to Diego on the loveseat as Vanya vaulted over Luther, broom in hand, to reset the alarms upstairs.

“I—Vanya, holy shit, I’ll _move,”_ Luther said, shielding his head from a wayward knee.

“Sorry!” she called, scrabbling up the steps with a determination Diego had never seen from her before. “It’s just so loud!”

“Who the hell even makes tater tots to give to guests?” Allison yelled from the kitchen. “That’s _weird,_ Klaus. That’s a _weird snack.”_

Klaus sank lower in his seat. “I hate it here,” he sulked.

The noise stopped, and a disgruntled Allison swept into the living room.

“Fire’s out,” she said tersely, then pulled at the front of her shirt to show them the oil splatters. “You’d better _pray_ this washes out, Klaus.”

“Save me, Super Jesus,” he muttered as she stomped up the stairs.

Noor slid off the back of the sofa. “Well,” they said, “now that that’s over, do you have a phone I can use?”

They smiled at Luther. “I need to make a call while we’re on break.”

“Oh,” he said, flustered. “Yeah, um…”

He disconnected the cellphone from the wall socket where it was charging and handed it over. “You just, uh. You press the green button, and then… Well. You know how to use these. I don’t know why I’m explaining it.”

“As a matter of fact, I _don’t_ know how to use these, because I’m from the same timeline you are,” said Noor. “But I think I can figure it out.”

The three of them watched as they sauntered through the kitchen and out the back door. A faucet turned on upstairs. The whole house smelled like burned cooking oil.

Luther looked to Diego. “Are you okay?” he asked. “You’re being so quiet.”

Klaus rested his head on his shoulder and fluttered his lashes at him. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Diego shrugged to get him off. “It’s n-nothing.”

Klaus and Luther exchanged a look, and he cringed internally. That was the part he hated most about his stutter—how easily it gave him away.

“I just keep thinking about the woman we might kill,” he said, taking the time to enunciate each word with care. He licked his lips. “What if it’s L-L- _Lila?”_

Both of his brothers stared at him for a second, stunned into silence.

“Oh, fuuuuuu—” said Klaus

“But we wouldn’t kill Lila,” Luther reasoned. He made a vague hand gesture. “I mean, she’s—Okay, I guess she’s not technically your girlfriend—”

“—uuuuuu—”

“—but she’s important to you, so we would never hurt her.” Realization dawned on Luther’s face. “…Unless she was trying to hurt us first. Oh, _shit.”_

“—uuuck,” Klaus finished.

Diego grunted his agreement. Fuck indeed.

“Don’t say anything to Noor or Sunny,” he warned them. “Not y-yet. I don’t know how much we can trust them.”

“Me neither.” Luther cast an uneasy glance at the back door, then leaned in closer. “Do you think this is what Noor actually looks like?”

Klaus smirked at him. “Trying to decide if it’s gay to jerk off to them while they look like a girl?” he asked knowingly. “The answer is yes. It will make you 100% homosexual for the rest of your life.”

Luther’s mouth fell open. _“What?_ No, I—Jesus _Christ,_ Klaus.”

“Now you have to do it or you’re a homophobe.”

“I’m not a—That’s not how being gay _works!”_

Diego first instinct was to snap at Klaus that this wasn’t the time for one of his comedy routines, but he held his tongue. He was only trying to make him feel better, in his own stupid way.

Besides. He could never stay mad at anybody who was this good at winding Luther up.

“All I meant was that it’s weird to think about,” Luther said. “Right? We’ve met Noor a few times now, and we still don’t know who they really are.”

The back door swung open, and the person in question strolled back inside.

“Thanks for letting me use this,” Noor said, pressing the phone into Luther’s hand as they passed by. “Let me repay you with some free advice.”

They turned on their heel and pointed into the kitchen. Diego followed their line of sight to the window Allison had opened.

“If you want to talk in private,” they said, “you should probably close that.”

…FUUUUU—

Oblivious to Diego’s internal panic, Noor was speaking again to Luther. “For the record, it doesn’t matter what form I take,” they said. “They’re _all_ really me. I’ve never been anyone _but_ me, chief.”

Luther’s eyes widened. “Oh, we—uh—I didn’t, um—”

“We weren’t talking about you behind your back,” Klaus jumped in over his stammering. “We were just… discussing you while you weren’t here.”

Noor shrugged one shoulder. “It’s cool.”

They dropped into a seat on the sofa and stretched their legs out in front of them, one ankle hooked behind the other.

“I’m an interesting topic of conversation,” they said matter-of-factly.

Luther’s brow creased. “Why a parakeet?” he asked in a sudden rush, like the question had been weighing on him for a while. “Why not, like… a pigeon, or a mouse, or… I don’t know, _anything_ less conspicuous?”

“Can _you_ turn into a pigeon or a mouse?”

“I… no?”

Noor held out one hand in a there-you-go gesture. “Then that makes two of us.”

Klaus, seeming emboldened, leaned around Diego to see them better. “How do you shop for clothes?” he asked. “Do you have to plan out who you’re going to be first?”

“I buy whatever outfits I like and then I turn into someone they’ll fit.”

“Oh. Wow.” Klaus studied them, intrigued. “That’s a really good system.”

Noor looked to Diego, one eyebrow raised in expectation.

He tightened his jaw and glared back, defiant. There was nothing he wanted to ask. From the moment Allison and Vanya said Noor had crept into their house and attacked them, he’d known everything about them he needed to.

“Well!” Noor said after a moment. “You might not have a question, but I still have an answer. Your girlfriend’s safe and sound—Sunny found her a few days ago, stalking her parents around 1980’s London like a real sad sack.”

“W-what?” he asked, his heart stuttering worse than his tongue.

“Yeah.” Noor crossed one leg over their knee and flicked at a bit of lint on the sofa. “They didn’t talk much, but from what Sunny told me, you don’t need to worry about doing battle with her.”

They scoffed, too dismissive to work up any real scorn. “Apparently, once she’s done playing _Back to the Future,_ she’s hoping that everyone with superpowers will find each other, and meet up, and be best friends forever and ever.”

If there had ever been a time when Diego had felt such profound relief, he couldn’t remember it. To hear that Lila was alright, and that she wanted to see them again! ‘Good news’ wasn’t a strong enough term.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Luther was saying to Noor.

They cocked their head at him. “Neither does world peace or hover cars,” they said, “but I’m not holding my breath, Luther.”

Of course she’d want to see them again. Of course she’d want to be around people who were like her. He couldn’t believe now that he’d doubted it for a second. Christ, what would it have been like to go through life thinking he was the only one? A cosmic typo with no place, and no purpose, and no people.

But she never had to be alone again. Wherever or whenever she might be, he offered it up to her as a silent promise— _I’m going to find you._

His emotions must have been plain on his face, because Klaus touched his arm, a question in his eyes. Luther and Noor were talking again, something about exotic birds in the city, and upstairs, he heard Vanya calling to Allison to ask which shirt she wanted to change into.

Diego swallowed against the lump in his throat. Gave Klaus a jerky nod.

He was fine. Lila was fine. And it would have sounded crazy to say out loud, in the middle of all the things they had lost and all the trouble they had found, but for the first time in a long time, he thought he had a happy ending within his reach.

{}{}{}{}{}

Five stood on their walkway with his hands in his pockets, watching Sunny flick her lighter against the breeze.

She wasn’t carrying a briefcase. No gun, either—he had looked for the telltale lump when she unzipped her jacket, and there wasn’t one.

She was making an honest, good faith effort to come to a truce.

He wanted to fight her _so hard._

After three tries with the lighter, the flame caught, and Sunny took in a deep drag.

“I’d offer you one,” she said, exhaling a gray cloud, “but I remember that you don’t smoke.”

“No. It’s a disgusting habit.”

She made a vague noise of agreement and scanned the sky.

“Nice out today. Starting to get warm.”

“The paper said it might rain.”

She took another pull of her cigarette, examining him from the corner of her eye.

“You’re angry at me,” she remarked mildly. “I reckon that’s your right. I kept a lot of things from you.”

Five bristled. He didn’t have a right to be angry at her, really, because she’d had no obligation to be transparent with him, because they’d never been friends, because you didn’t _have_ friends at the Commission.

But he was angry at her all the same, and it irked him to no end that she was being so, so… _understanding._

“You’re full of shit, Sunny,” he snapped.

She turned to face him. “Am I?”

“You are,” he said. “Let’s get this straight—my brothers and sisters might believe you were in some epic battle of good and evil with the Handler, but I’m not fucking buying it. Nobody ends up working at the Commission because they’re dedicated to the betterment of mankind. She offered you something to recruit you. And whatever it was, you decided that it was worth becoming a murderer to get.”

Sunny turned away to stare out into the street. Her cigarette burned between her fingers, her face as blank as ever. Inside his pockets, Five balled his hands into fists.

“The Handler recruited me the same way she recruited you,” she said finally. Her gaze flicked back around to meet his. “I was in a desperate situation, and she offered me a way out when I didn’t think there was one. S’pose I should be grateful to her for that. But it didn’t take long before I realized I was still getting the raw end of the deal.”

She offered him a humorless smile. “Working at the Commission changes you.”

Well. No arguments there.

Sunny’s cheeks hollowed out as she pulled hard on her cigarette. “Once I realized she was collecting superhumans,” she continued, “I figured someone ought to try and stop her. So I stayed on after my contract was up. It was twenty years I worked there, from my perspective. That’s my penance, I guess.”

“Your penance,” Five repeated.

“Mm.” She blew out another puff of smoke, slow, letting it fade until she was exhaling only air. “I don’t know if saving a few innocent people makes up for killing hundreds. But it needed to be done, and so I did it.”

Five kicked at a pebble on the walkway. “How noble of you,” he muttered darkly.

Sunny rolled her shoulders in an easy shrug. “Saving Earth from the Apocalypse was the work of your life,” she said. “Saving people like you and Noor from being used as weapons has been mine.”

She gestured to him with her cigarette. “And that’s for the whole world’s sake. You’re a right menace when you want to be, Number Five.”

Five fell silent, hands clenching and unclenching inside of his pockets as he mulled everything over.

Empathy was… not his strong suit. But he understood, he thought. Hadn’t he viewed working for the Commission as a means to an end? Hadn’t he told himself that his victims were slated to die whether or not he was the one to pull the trigger? He, too, had taken comfort from the notion that he was doing something important, something bigger than himself, and that it was not the blood on his hands that would taint his soul—it was giving up his mission part way through.

So, yes. He got it.

“Did the Handler ever try to get to anyone in my family?” he asked.

Sunny shook her head. “I think the admins already knew they were going to be part of the 2019 Apocalypse,” she said. “She was watching them. But they were off-limits.”

That was a relief. For all that Diego liked reminding everyone that he’d also been a Commission agent for an afternoon, none of them would have lasted there more than a week. They were all too good.

Five nodded. “Alright,” he said, a little stiff. “Truce.”

Sunny bowed her head solemnly. “Truce.”

He watched her toss her cigarette and ground it out beneath her heel.

“Next time there’s an Apocalypse, though,” he said, with a touch of reproach, “feel free to pitch in and help. I don’t know if Vivienne mentioned it, but we failed the first time around.”

“She said that. But I had faith in you.”

Sunny’s mouth curved into one of her half-smiles, and for the first time, this one had a glimmer of genuine amusement in it. “You met Viv?” she asked. “What did you think of her?”

Oh, God. What was there to say?

“She’s very French,” Five decided finally.

To his eternal wonderment, Sunny _laughed._

{}{}{}{}{}

Everyone was back in the living room. Sunny had finished her cigarette, and Allison had changed her shirt. Snacks had been offered. Snacks had been declined, because they were crudely-chopped carrots and Klaus had not washed them first. Klaus had gotten a little offended. Vanya had eaten one to make him feel better. It had tasted like dirt.

Now the meeting was called back to order, and Five took the floor to deliver his assessment of their options.

“Alright,” he said. “Taking all of the facts into consideration, and weighing what we know versus what we need to find out, I think we can all agree there’s only one course of action open to us.”

He gazed around the room, his face grave. “More research. Let’s go to the library.”

Noor’s expression melted into pure revulsion as Klaus groaned.

“Yeah, how about no?” said Diego. “I have a theory. The dead chick is one of the girls from the Sparrow Academy, and if we kill her, it’s for a good reason. She’s trying to kill us first, or she’s like, a terrorist or something.”

He jabbed a finger for emphasis. “Whatever it is, she deserves to get got.”

Allison raised a skeptical eyebrow, stirring her drink with its straw. “That seems like a big leap.”

“A big _logical_ leap.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Think about it. They’re the only other local superhumans we’ve met, and it’s not like we run around shellacking people for fun. What other explanation is there?”

Allison made a face at him and began ticking things off on her fingers.

“She could get killed by someone else, and we show up afterwards.”

One finger. Luther nodded, slow and thoughtful.

“She could die in an accident of some kind, because there’s no actual, real evidence this is a murder at all.”

Two fingers. Vanya’s brows raised in realization.

“This could all happen forty freaking years from now, because we have zero timeline on any of it.”

Three fingers, complete fatality, Klaus gaped at the ceiling.

Five, who had made coffee for himself and himself only, set his cup down gingerly on the cardboard table.

“I can’t speak to when or why it’ll happen,” he said, “but I did get the sense there had been a fight beforehand.”

He lowered himself into one of the kitchen chairs Vanya had brought in from the kitchen, looking unmistakably like an old man in the body of a young one.

“The way we were all standing. Something in the air.” His eyes narrowed in thought as he tried to pin it down, but after a moment, he let it go and shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it, but that was my takeaway.”

That was surprising, coming from him. Five had always been Mr. Facts and Figures, never one to give much heed to gut feelings. Or regular feelings, to be honest.

It was too early to tell if this was a temporary thing, or if getting high had shaken something loose in him for good. Either way, one truth prevailed: Acid was a hell of a drug.

“Yes,” Sunny agreed. “Mine, too. But I don’t think your motives or the circumstances around this woman’s death are what we should focus on. If we can figure out who she is, I reckon the rest will fall into place, too.”

Noor, who was lounging on the arm of the sofa next her, swung one leg idly back and forth. “Also, as much as I want to watch a bunch of elderly superheroes throw down, Viv can’t see that far into the future. She’s got about a five year range. Usually less.”

Diego nodded. “Sparrow Academy,” he declared. “They’re the best lead we’ve got.”

There were vague murmurings of assent, some more reluctant than others.

A brief silence followed. The next question was obvious, but none of them wanted to be the one to ask it.

Luther rubbed his hands over his knees and turned to Sunny, who was sitting next to him. “So… do you want us to talk to our father, or…?”

“You tell me,” she said. “Noor and I have never met him. How much do you trust him?”

…How could any of them answer that? Reginald Hargreeves wanted to stop the end of the world, but was on board with assassinating a president. He’d given them the best of every material thing as children, but never a kind word. He’d unadopted them then offered them a place to stay, and he had taken their warnings of danger seriously, then refused to act on them.

He was not, at the end of the day, an evil man. But if they were going to kill one of his children, there was every chance in the world that he’d have something to do with it.

“You can trust him to do what he thinks is right,” Klaus said finally. “But what he thinks is right is usually kind of fucked up.”

Next to him, Diego grunted, “Seconded.”

“That’s a no,” Five clarified for Sunny and Noor. “You can’t trust him.”

“I don’t know how we’d even start that conversation, anyway,” murmured Vanya.

Klaus flapped his hand at her. “Oh, that’s the easy part,” he said in dismissal. “All we’d do is call him up, ask which of his daughters is the most murderable, and then sit back and wait for the cops to get here.”

Five turned an assessing look on Noor. “You were watching us,” he said. “Were you watching the Sparrow Academy as well?”

“At first. Didn’t get much useful information.” They shrugged one shoulder. “Big house. Lots of windows. And your father runs a tight ship—the only one of them who goes outside on the regular is Number Three.”

“The one with the enhanced defensive abilities,” said Five. He screwed up his face in thought. “He got adopted in his teens, didn’t he?”

Allison raised her eyebrows in surprise as Luther leaned forward.

“What does he do when he leaves?” he asked curiously.

“Goes to church, mainly.” Noor sucked their teeth. “I think he had a girlfriend for a while, but they seem to have split up. He buys calling cards to Uganda sometimes.”

They shrugged again. “You know, real nefarious shit.”

Vanya crossed her arms and slouched low in her chair. “Well, it’s… going to be a lot harder for you to spy on them now,” she said. “We told Dad to be on the lookout for suspicious animals. Sorry.”

“I wasn’t planning to go back anyway,” said Noor. “The last time I was there, your brother threw a rock at me.”

 _“Ben_ did?” Vanya asked in disbelief.

“He’s scared of birds,” Klaus said defensively.

Diego cocked his head at him. “For real?”

“Oh yeah, big time.” He clawed at the air. “Their feet just weird him _right_ out.”

Sunny cleared her throat. “The way I see it,” she said, “we have two options. You can all do more research into the Sparrow Academy’s backgrounds—"

Five smiled in satisfaction. “The library.”

“—and Noor and I can keep an eye on their comings and goings from the house.”

Diego’s face lit up like the sun. _“Stakeout.”_

“I don’t mean _you_ should—” Sunny started, at the same time Allison said, “Diego, that’s a terrible—”

They stopped and looked at each other. Sunny gestured with one hand.

“You first,” she said.

Allison fixed her sights on Diego. “You’re not going on a stakeout,” she told him firmly. “They’ve all seen you. They know who you are. What do you think is going to happen if you get made?”

“Seems like a good way to provoke a confrontation,” Sunny agreed.

He scoffed. “Speak for yourself. I’m a professional at this shit.”

“Diego, _no,”_ said Allison.

“Diego, yes,” Klaus whispered.

“Tell you what,” said Diego. “I’ll go on a stakeout, and you take the Dweeb Patrol and go have quiet reading time together, and we’ll see who comes back with better intel.”

“Am I part of the Dweeb Patrol?” Luther wondered as Five rolled his eyes in exasperation.

“You can come on a stakeout with me,” offered Noor. “You drive. I’ll stake.”

He blinked, taken aback. “Well… okay,” he said, with some trepidation. “Maybe.”

Diego lifted his chin. “You said yourselves that it’s a big house,” he said. “There’s a ton of hidden entrances and places to hide. You’ll have an easier time if you have people there who know the layout.”

Five grunted his reluctant agreement. Sunny still looked doubtful.

“If you want us to work on this together,” Diego insisted, his eyes burning holes into her, “we’re doing _all_ of it together. There’s no halfway.”

“No ‘I’ in ‘team,” Klaus added.

“Exactly.”

“No rules in love or war.”

“Yeah. That—wait, what?”

“No crying in baseball.”

Diego twisted around to look him in the face. “No jury that’ll convict me for stabbing you in the kidney.”

Klaus made a show of zipping his lips closed.

Sunny let out a breath. “Alright,” she said. “Alright.”

Her dark, bottomless eyes scanned the room. The abyss staring back.

“No halfway.”

{}{}{}{}{}

For the second time that day, there was a fire.

The Hargreeves stood in a circle in the backyard, Sunny and Noor off to one side, and watched as the pages of the Handler’s book curled up in smoke.

“This feels anti-climactic,” Klaus said, eyes glued to the flames.

“Says the arsonist,” muttered Five.

“It just, it lacks _panache?”_ He sucked the inside of one cheek. “There’s an old phone book in the kitchen.”

Diego prodded at the burning paper with the handle of a broom. “You’re not burning a phone book,” he said. Then, to Sunny, “What now? Are we going over to the Academy?”

She shook her head. “No reason to rush. I’ll call you tomorrow and we can make a plan.”

Vanya waved smoke away from her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “Um. Is Wyatt going to be with you?”

Allison glanced up, too, and Five turned in anticipation of the answer.

“Nah,” said Noor. “It’d be a hell of a commute. But I talked to him earlier on your weird little baby phone, and he’s going to call me and Sunny for updates when he finishes work.”

Sunny shot a look at them from the corner of her eye, but didn’t comment.

“Is there any reason I _can’t_ burn the phone book?” Klaus asked.

Luther sighed. “Klaus, there is literally a fire right here in front of you,” he said, gesturing to it. “What more excitement do you need?”

Allison toed at an ember on the ground. “We told our father about Wyatt, too,” she said. “He should be careful if he tries to make contact with any of the Sparrows.”

“We’ll let him know,” said Sunny.

“Hey, have you ever done that thing where you walk across hot coals?” Klaus was asking Luther. “Like, you take off your shoes and run through?”

“No.”

“Do you want to?”

“No!”

Sunny angled her head at Noor. “We should get going,” she said. “Good to see you all again.”

Then, with a nod in his direction, “Number Five.”

“Sunny,” he said coolly.

“What are you doing?” Luther asked as Klaus hopped in a circle, trying to remove one of his shoes. “You’re not running through the fire, are you?”

“I guess that depends on if you’re going to try to stop me.”

“You can’t _do_ that. You’ll hurt yourself, and we don’t have money to take you to the hospital—No, put your shoe back on!”

“I’ll be counting the minutes until tomorrow, Hargreeves family,” Noor said, already opening the door back into the house. They pointed at Klaus, who was shoving his bare foot in Luther’s face as Luther held him pinned to a chair. “Dibs on this one for the stakeout, by the way.”

“How are you so flexible?!” Luther cried in frustration.

Sunny closed the door behind her. Through the window, the Hargreeves watched her and Noor pass through the kitchen and the living room, and out of the house.

Diego rested his chin on the hand he held the broom with. “That went better than I thought.”

“It did,” Five agreed.

“I still don’t trust either of them.”

“Neither do I.”

Allison turned away, rolling her eyes. “There’s a surprise.”

“I thought they were nice,” Vanya ventured. She squeezed her elbows. “Nicer than I was expecting, anyway.”

Five sighed through his nose. “You think everyone’s nice,” he said. “You’re a pushover.”

“I’m not.” Her brows knit together. “…Maybe I am.”

Allison wound her way around Luther and Klaus’s wrestling match—which wasn’t so much wrestling as it was an armored tank trying to run defense on an eel—and scooped Klaus’s shoe off the ground.

“Nice,” she commented, running one finger over the leather. “Are these the ones you brought with you from the 60’s?”

Klaus peeked out between Luther’s arms. “Yep!” he panted. “Most comfortable boots I ever had. I’d let you borrow them, but I don’t think we’re the same size.”

She smiled at him, then tossed it onto the fire.

Klaus wailed like she was burning his firstborn child right in front of him.

“Stone cold,” Diego said in approval.

“There’s no way I’m getting the grease out of my shirt,” Allison explained.

She swooped down in a ruffle of pastel skirts to drop a kiss onto Klaus’s forehead. “Now we’re even. Love you!”


	13. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Hargreeves stake people out, look people up, and ponder what's in a name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good morning, sportsfans! Here is a quick rundown of the Sparrow Academy's powers (in this story) so you don't have to go back and look for them:   
> 1- is Ben  
> 2- can create a flame  
> 3- has impenetrable skin and unbreakable bones  
> 4- can fly  
> 5- unclear  
> 6- super smeller

The Hargreeves stared in silence at the map of their childhood home.

It was enormous, covering twelve sheets of paper taped to the living room wall. The main entrances were marked in blue. The secret ones, yellow. Security cameras were denoted by green dots, and each tree on the sidewalk was shown as a small X. Every crevice, every overhang, every hidden nook and cranny of the house was there, rendered in intimate, meticulous detail.

It did not border on insanity. It pole-vaulted over the fence straight into it, and hit the ground running.

Diego flung a proud arm at his handiwork.

“What do you think?”

Klaus closed his jaw. “I think you’re a corkboard and some red string away from being taken off the case, detective,” he said. “Did you even sleep last night?”

“Yeah. On the couch. You were already in bed, so I didn’t want to wake you.”

As Klaus raised his brows at this unprecedented thoughtfulness, Diego retreated into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee.

“There’s plenty to go around, if anyone else wants some, by the way,” he said, holding the pot aloft. “I made enough for all of us.”

He smiled at them. Luther took a reflexive step backwards in alarm, and Vanya rubbed at her arms as though to dispel goosebumps.

“This is a decent start,” Five said, examining the map, “but we’ll have to find a few good vantage points if you’re expecting us to watch every single entrance.”

“Covered,” Diego said cheerily. “There’s a parking garage near the northeast corner of the house. Sunny’s got a car, so if we get a spot on the top level, we’ll have a perfect view of the street.”

He saluted with his coffee mug and said, “Team Zero, baby!” then moonwalked to the fridge to get some creamer.

The rest of them exchanged bewildered glances behind his back. This was not the Diego they knew and tolerated.

“Well, you have fun playing spymaster,” said Allison, sliding into a seat at the kitchen table. “I’ll be at the library.”

“Sounds good to me.” Diego gave her hair a playful tug as he walked by. “I’ll kick the ass, and you take the names, sis.”

On his way to the sofa, he paused to tuck an escaped clothing tag into Luther’s shirt. “There you go,” he said, delivering a friendly slap across his back. “Looking fresh.”

Five, who had just poured himself a cup of the coffee, sniffed it, suspicious.

“Are you… feeling okay, Diego?” Vanya asked as he sat down. “You’re not, um. Your usual self this morning.”

He stretched out his legs with a contented sigh. “I feel great,” he said. “Thanks for asking, though. How are _you_ feeling?”

Allison’s eyebrows shot up as Luther stared at him, agog.

“I… uh…” said Vanya.

Klaus stepped forward, eyes sharp. “What was our pet tiger’s name when we were kids?” he demanded.

Five did a double-take. “You had a _pet tiger?_ Did Dad become the dictator of a small country after I left?”

Diego laughed. Like… out loud. “No, it was a pretend one when we were little,” he explained. Then, to Klaus, “Gingerbread. Why are you bringing that up?”

Klaus crossed his arms, shifting his weight around uneasily. “Because I’ve never seen you in this good of a mood before, and we _do_ know a shape-shifter.”

Luther’s face pinched. “Oh, wow, you’re right.” He glanced around the room. “Maybe we should come up with like… a code word? To use to prove we’re not actually Noor in disguise?”

Diego snorted, with no real derision. “That’s a little paranoid, Luther.”

“I don’t know who you are anymore,” Klaus told him.

At the kitchen table, Allison swiveled in her seat to face the living room. “Okay,” she said, “why am I getting the feeling there’s something you aren’t telling us?”

Diego shrugged, a secretive smile playing around his mouth. “I’m just happy,” he said. “We’ve all been stressing about a lot of shit lately, but I’ve been thinking about it, and uh. I don’t know.”

He made a vague gesture with his coffee cup. “I’ve got a good feeling, is all. Like we’re going to figure things out. Soon.”

Allison studied him. She still looked puzzled—they all were—but it was nice to hear that _someone_ was optimistic about their future. It had been an uphill battle this week.

“Alright.” She smiled back at him. “Glad you think so.”

“I do,” he said, with total sincerity. “I really do.”

Five cleared his throat, then jumped into the armchair. “Well, since I’ve finally caught you at a good time, I have a proposal,” he said briskly. “I move to ditch the name ‘Team Zero.’”

Diego blinked a few times, mug halfway to his mouth. “…What?”

“Just the name,” Vanya rushed to assure him. “The concept is solid, but the name’s kind of… silly?”

He looked between her and Five, his face a portrait of betrayal. “Have you two been talking about this?”

“No!”

“Extensively.”

Allison made a sympathetic noise as Diego stared into the middle distance, expression bleak. “Don’t be upset,” she said gently. “We’ll still _be_ Team Zero, okay? Just, maybe stop telling people that we are. It’s embarrassing.”

He looked to Klaus, who held up his hands. “I like it,” he said. “It makes us sound like comic book characters. But I was outvoted.”

Diego’s breathing hitched. “You guys had a _secret vote?!”_

“I wasn’t part of it,” Luther said fast. “I said we shouldn’t do it unless you were there.”

Five gave him a dirty look over his cup. “You hate the name as much as the rest of us, and you know it.”

Luther set his jaw. “I don’t know _anything,”_ he said stubbornly.

Diego slumped in his seat. “You guys don’t deserve the name ‘Team Zero,’” he grumbled. “It’s wasted on you.”

“Good,” said Five. “Then we’re all agreed.”

“No, not agreed!” Diego surged to his feet and glowered around the room at them all. “I’m not agreeing to shit! The name stays, and you three—” He swung his arm in an arc to point at Allison, Vanya, and Five—“can form your own splinter cell called Team Douche Canoe. How’s that sound?”

Allison sighed as he stomped into the kitchen. “Here’s our Diego.”

“Good to have you back,” Klaus said happily.

Diego slammed his empty mug on the counter. “Cannot _believe_ I made you all coffee,” he fumed.

{}{}{}{}{}

**Number One- The Horror**

Allison followed Five to the table of computers, averting her gaze guiltily from the one with an ‘Out of Order’ sign on it.

During breakfast, Sunny had called to iron out the details of their investigation into the Sparrow Academy. The plan as of right now was to stake them out in shifts—she would cover the nights, along with Diego, who claimed that was when the most action happened. Luther and Klaus were en route to the Academy with Noor at that very moment. Vanya had decided to tag along with them until she had to work at the diner that afternoon, which left Allison and Five to compile a dossier on their targets.

“So how are we doing this?” she asked as she took a seat, keeping her voice low.

Another library patron was using a computer across from them. There wasn’t _technically_ any reason to hide the fact that they were doing a deep dive into local celebrities, but the shame of being found out loomed large.

Magazines had used to obsess over what shoes she wore to the gym. Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

“Start with Number Two and work our way down.” Five produced a pen and a notepad from his pocket. “I think we can skip Ben.”

The back of Allison’s neck prickled. She had been trying to avoid thinking about him, or at least the version of him that existed here, ever since they’d arrived back in 2019. Was he still the brother they’d known, at his core? Or was he a whole new person, and any passing similarities mere coincidence?

She couldn’t decide which possibility was harder to stomach. But either way, they were strangers to him now. Looking him up could only cause pain.

She typed ‘Ben Hargreeves’ into the search bar.

The results were… a whole lot of nothing, actually. There was a picture of Dad, and a group shot of the Sparrow Academy. A few articles that seemed to contain the names ‘Ben’ and ‘Hargreeves,’ but never in conjugation.

“Does he have a different name?” she whispered, dumbfounded.

“Who?”

Five rolled his chair over to see what she was looking at, then huffed in annoyance.

“Why do you all always expect me to come up with a plan, and then ignore every word I say?” he asked. “There’s a psychological phenomenon at work here that I just don’t understand.”

“I was curious.” She gestured at the screen. “But look—there’s no Ben Hargreeves anywhere.”

He pushed his chair back to his own computer. “As far as I can tell, the whole Sparrow Academy goes by their numbers alone, except for the one who got adopted later,” he said. “If they have other names, they’re a well-kept secret.”

…Jesus. Imagine if she’d never been anything more than Number Three. That’s what being raised single-handedly by their father turned you into, she supposed—an adult who bore no outward sign of having ever known a parent’s love.

Allison took a deep breath in and let it out to combat the swell of emotion in her chest. Their childhoods hadn’t been sunshine and rainbows, but at least they’d had Mom.

Mothers were important that way.

“Everything alright?”

She glanced up to see Five watching her, his eyes wary.

“Yeah.” She drew in another breath. “Yeah, just um. Thinking about something else.”

She clicked her nails on the table a few times. “Can… I ask you a personal question?”

He scoffed, gaze moving back to his screen. “Like saying no would stop you.”

“When Mom was giving us names, why didn’t you want one?”

Five didn’t look up from his typing, and his expression betrayed no flicker of surprise.

“Because I already had one,” he said easily. “If numbers didn’t feel ‘real’ enough for the rest of you, it’s only because you were too fixated on the Dad’s stupid ranking system. I never cared much about that.”

His fingers paused for a second over the keyboard. “I also didn’t like the one she picked for me.”

Allison leaned forward in interest. She hadn’t known Mom had chosen one at all.

“What was it?”

“Never mind.”

“Well, why didn’t you like it?” she pressed. “Was it embarrassing, or you just didn’t think it suited you?”

“I’m not going to tell you, so it doesn’t matter.” He thrust his chin at the ‘Quiet, Please’ sign hanging over the computer table. “Shut up and get to work.”

Allison clicked back to the search bar with a sigh. Five had always been abrasive, but years of isolation had made him a special kind of asshole.

“When we get our real lives back,” she told him, “I’m enrolling you in charm school, Archibald.”

{}{}{}{}{}

The Academy somehow looked bigger when viewed from above.

Luther’s eyes roved over the row of abandoned store fronts with their shabby signs, the turrets ripped right out of a Gothic novel, the grimy glass of the greenhouse on the roof. The ledge he’d used to stargaze on as a child. Hundreds of windows, glittering like teeth.

It was funny. When you were inside, it felt so cramped. Like the walls were closing in.

“Home sweet home,” Klaus sighed as Luther cut the ignition off. “I hope you sprung for good rental insurance on this car, because I might pee myself out of joy.”

In the backseat, Vanya scooted further away from him.

“Okay.” Luther turned to Noor, who was next to him. They were in the form of a tall, older guy today, the one they’d taken the first time they’d all met. “You brought the supplies?”

They unlatched the glove compartment and began pulling things out. “Binoculars and walkie talkies. Who wants what?”

Klaus grabbed one of the walkie talkies from their hand and began fiddling with the dials as Vanya leaned forward.

“Binoculars, I guess?” she said. “But… I don’t know, can we go over what it is we’re doing, exactly?”

“Oh.” Luther twisted around to look at her. “This is your first stakeout, isn’t it?”

He kept forgetting this was all new to her. She honestly hadn’t missed much, because playing superheroes was simultaneously dull and stressful most of the time, but still. It was good to have her on the team.

Good to have a second chance to let her be.

“The hardest part is staying awake,” he told her, then, with a touch of awkwardness, reached over to tap his binoculars against her own.

“Cheers.”

They traded slightly hesitant smiles.

_AWOOOoooOOOoo—_

Klaus switched off his walkie talkie as Luther started in his seat and Vanya clamped her hands over her ears.

“Sorry!” he said. “The good news is, these seem to be in working order. Now we know.”

Luther shook his head and pointed out over the house. “Alright, so I’ll watch the east side of the house, and you’ll watch the west side,” he told Vanya. “You have a blind spot from about where the bar entrance is all the way to the back—”

Klaus sank into his seat, sighing nostalgically. “The bar!” he said. “So many good memories! You know, one time, when we were seventeen, Alli and I stole a bottle of Dad’s wine and drank it down there so we could pretend we were adults out on the town.”

He smiled off into space. “Then I took some pills I had lying around and made sweet, sweet love to the pool table. That was the last time she spoke to me until we were adults.”

“—so just keep an eye on the streets around there,” Luther concluded. “If anyone comes out, you’ll see them within a block or so.”

Vanya tucked her hair behind her ear. “Okay. Um. In case one of them sees us, what am I supposed to do?”

“We’re just breezing right past the ‘fucked a pool table’ thing, huh?” asked Noor.

“Well… Five’s idea was to say that we’re here to see Dad,” Luther said slowly. “But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

It wasn’t a terrible plan, but it had one obvious, massive downside in that it would result in them having to see Dad. His stomach churned at the mere thought.

Noor and Vanya got out of the car to switch seats, so Vanya could be up front. Luther gave Klaus a sheet of paper and instructions to take notes. There was silence as they watched the street.

Klaus crossed one long leg over his knee. “So Noor,” he said, “if you had to pick, which celebrity would you say you can impersonate the best?”

Oh, God. Out of the corner of his eye, Luther saw Vanya wince.

“None, actually,” Noor said to his great relief. “I can put on their face and do accents, but that’s it. It ends up looking more like a celebrity is impersonating me than the other way around.”

“Oh,” Klaus said, disappointed.

“Yeah.” They lifted their chin at him. “How about you?”

Fuck, _no._

He perked up. “Well, I can do tons, but are you familiar with the Muppets?”

Luther lowered the binoculars. “Klaus,” he said, “I don’t think you need to—”

“That’s a SWEE-dish MEAt-baaall,” Klaus sang in a lilting bass, pumping his arms around like a pirate doing a jig. “Bort, bort, bort, bort!”

“That’s actually pretty accurate,” Vanya murmured.

Noor was regarding Klaus like he was an early Christmas gift. “Spectacular,” they said.

“Thank you!” he said giddily. “I can do Beaker, too. Want to see Beaker?”

_“No,”_ Luther pleaded.

“I have never wanted anything more in my life,” Noor told him solemnly.

“Me, me me meee, ME, me me—”

Luther sighed.

He had been wrong. Not killing one another was the hardest part of a stakeout.

{}{}{}{}{}

**Number Two- The Spark**

Having been famous herself for most of her life, Allison knew to take celebrity news with a grain of salt.

Quotes got taken out of context. The paparazzi delighted in snapping unflattering photos. Anonymous sources sold bogus ‘inside tips’ to whoever was buying when they were short on rent or attention. Life was a stage, and fame put you constantly, unfairly front and center.

That being said, the more apt superhero name for The Spark was probably ‘The Hot Mess.’

She was tall and slim, with the icy good looks of a high-fashion model and a terminal case of Resting Bitch Face. In her youth, Allison could see that she’d been primed for the role of the intellectual in the group, but her public image had shifted at some point over the years.

Gone was the poised little princess. In her place, there stood a queen, and over the supermarket checkout lane tabloids, she reigned supreme.

Here she was getting into a car, wearing a short skirt and no panties. Now she was stumbling home in the early hours of the morning, hair mussed and body smeared with Day-Glo paint. In one photo, she was smiling and flashing what appeared to be an engagement ring, and then in one a week later, her fingers were bare as she tearfully crammed a gas station hotdog into her mouth.

Allison had had her share of embarrassing moments caught on camera. But at least she’d never been spotted shimmying down a fire escape, barefoot, dressed in a sexy pirate costume, a full month after Halloween.

“The part that doesn’t make sense to me is that Noor said they don’t get out much,” Five murmured. He gestured at the computer. “How are there so many bad photos of this woman? Does one of her tits fall out of her shirt every time she leaves the house?”

Allison contemplated the article they’d opened. It featured a picture of Number Two from a few weeks earlier, passed out drunk on the sofa in a hotel lobby. A pretty typical day in her life, really, but… something about it wasn’t sitting right.

“Five,” she said slowly, “this wasn’t taken at a hotel. This was inside their house.”

“What?” He peered closer at the screen, frowning. “How can you tell?”

She tapped the glass. “Look at the rug. That’s the one in the good guest bedroom at the Academy, remember?”

His eyes widened. _“Shit.”_

They both stared at the photo, unnerved by this revelation.

“Well,” Five said after a few seconds. “I guess one of her siblings doesn’t like her much.”

Allison suppressed a shudder. She had vowed revenge on every single member of their family at one point or another in her younger, more dramatic years, but nothing like _this_ had ever crossed her mind.

“It’s so creepy,” she said. “What kind of psycho gets angry at their sister and decides to show a picture of her butt to the world?”

“No idea.” Five jotted something down on his notepad. “If you and I ever become mortal enemies, I’ll just push you down the stairs. You can die with your dignity intact, at least.”

Allison made a face at him. “This is another one of those times when I can’t tell if you’re joking or not, Percival,” she said. “I’m going to go ahead and assume you are for my own peace of mind.”

Five stopped writing and set down his pen. He raised his eyes to meet hers, hands clasped on the table in front of him.

“Obviously I _am_ joking,” he said, in a dangerously soft voice, “and the name Mom picked for me wasn’t Percival. You can stop trying to guess.”

Allison smiled at him.

“Mortimer.”

His eyes flashed. “No.”

“Seymour.”

“No.”

“Leslie.”

_“Stop.”_

{}{}{}{}{}

Luther knew he had a lot of failings as a brother.

Vanya was the big example. Ignored her entire life, until it came time to provoke her into ending the world. Diego, too—every contest between them had been an assault on his pride, because there was no way he could ever win in their father’s eyes, but Luther had kept competing with him all the same.

He should have kept in touch with Allison after she left for L.A. He should have been gentler with Ben, who’d always looked up to him for some unfathomable reason. He should have been less gentle with Five, who they’d all known wasn’t ready to time-travel, but who was _very_ scary at age thirteen.

And he saw now that he should have paid more attention to Klaus. Because maybe, if he’d gotten enough of it earlier in life, he wouldn’t be trying to impress a stranger by impersonating puppets at age thirty-two.

“—wocka, wocka, wocka!” He threw up his hands and beamed at Noor. “Fozzie Bear.”

“Have you been practicing these?” Vanya wondered, half impressed and half concerned.

Klaus shrugged modestly. “Here and there. Okay, so here’s Kermit—”

Someone turned down the street by the house, and Luther focused the binoculars on them. But they kept going straight past it, nose buried in their mobile phone.

He rubbed at the spot between his eyes. If something didn’t happen soon, he was going to combust of secondhand embarrassment. Or just regular embarrassment, because Klaus was making all three of them look _so dumb._

“He-e-ey, everybody!” Klaus said in a warbling voice. “I’m Kermit the Frog, and I think I play an accordion or some shit, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen the Muppets—"

“It’s a banjo,” Luther broke in, unable to take anymore. “He plays a banjo. And that’s not what he sounds like, so can we maybe just… stop? Please?”

He knew Klaus liked to entertain, and loved to make people laugh, and if it had just been the three of them there in the car, it might have been kind of funny. But… holy shit, there was a _real person_ here.

Klaus pressed his hands over his heart, shooting him a wounded look. “Forsooth, a hater.”

Vanya twisted around in the front. “No, nobody hates it,” she promised. “It’s just, Kermit’s more like… like, ‘Hi, my name—’” She cleared her throat, shaking her head self-consciously. “Well. I can’t do it, either.”

“No, that was good,” Noor encouraged. The waved a hand at her. “Keep going.”

Vanya glanced between Klaus and Luther, as though looking for a way out of this situation.

“Well,” she said haltingly, her voice dropping a decibel in shame, “um. I guess Kermit sounds like ‘ReeEEEEeee—‘”

Oh, Jesus, Klaus was one thing, but he couldn’t sit here and let _Vanya_ make a complete fool of herself.

“No, he doesn’t just make noises,” Luther told her, pinching his nose and speaking in the back of his throat. “Hey, everybody, I’m Kermit the Frog—”

“Lilypads! Frog stuff!” Klaus was saying in a strange, husky yodel. “I’m in an emotionally abusive relationship with Miss Piggy!”

“eeeEEE—”

Noor was sunk low in their seat, watching the proceedings with a smirky half-smile.

“This is superb. Really just—” They clicked their tongue and pinched two fingers together—“top notch artistry. If I knew what the fuck a Muppet was, I’m sure I’d be applauding.”

All activity in the car ground to a halt.

“You don’t know the Muppets?” Luther asked in a strained voice.

“Nope.” Noor crossed their ankles. “Western pop culture is a barrel I have yet to scrape the bottom of.”

Vanya closed her eyes for a second, then turned back to watch the house, stone-faced.

“Ha, you got me!” Klaus said in delight. “My best Swedish Chef for nothing.”

Luther twisted around with a guttural sigh. “You need to learn the difference between laughing with and laughing at,” he muttered, raising the binoculars to his face.

Klaus hummed happily. “No, I already know,” he said, one leg swinging back and forth. “But as long as everybody’s laughing, who cares?”

Well… Luther cared. Vanya did, too. But that was the difference between them, he supposed. Klaus’s top priority had always been having a good time.

Luther couldn’t imagine being like that, but he did admire it, in some ways.

Klaus leaned forward to clap the back of his seat, fixing him with a serious look. “You do need to work on your Kermit impression, though, big guy.”

He widened his eyes soulfully. “I was embarrassed _for_ you.”

{}{}{}{}{}

**Number Three- The Fortress**

“—and our next guest is someone I’m very excited to have on the show with us today. You could even say I’m… super excited. From the Sparrow Academy, please welcome Tumaini Ramaganda!”

Number Three jogged out on stage, waving as the audience cheered.

“Handsome guy,” Allison commented.

Five crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back in his seat. “Don’t start.”

“Start what? It was only an observation.”

“Stop observing, then.”

“Oh my God, Cuthbert, calm down and watch the video.”

His eyes narrowed. If it was wrong to enjoy teasing your brother this much as an adult, then Allison didn’t want to be right.

On the screen, Tumaini was telling his hostess about the charity he was there to promote. He was an engaging speaker, Allison found—quick to smile, with the kind of affable confidence that would have you nodding along if he told you the sky was red.

She saw shades of herself in him. The title of Number Three just bestowed an extra dose of charisma, maybe.

The hostess, a brunette with the ombre hair that had been popular at the time this was filmed, threw her hands apart in exaggerated astonishment.

“Superhero, philanthropist, what can’t you do?” she marveled. “But, Tumaini, I have to ask—I know you grew up in Uganda—”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Yes.”

“—and you spent most of your life in an orphanage, right, because you lost your mother very young—”

She paused, and he did, too, for the collective murmur of audience sympathy. Tragic backstories played _so_ well on shows like this.

“—did you ever think, when you were a child, that this is where your life would end up?”

Next to her, Five sighed.

This was the part where he was supposed to gush over their father. How lucky he was to have been adopted by him, how grateful he was to be given so many opportunities, how Reginald Hargreeves was all that was good in the world, etcetera, etcetera.

The part where he was supposed to lie, basically.

To Allison’s surprise, Number Three threw his head back and laughed. “When I was a child,” he said, voice rich with amusement, “I was very sure I would be the first African pope by now.”

He turned to the audience, shrugging, charming, flashing his dazzlingly white teeth, and said, “I liked his hat.”

As they erupted into laughter, Five made a note on his paper.

“Awful lot of trouble to go to for a hat,” he said.

Allison smiled at the screen. “Kid logic,” she explained. “Claire’s dream is to work at McDonald’s so she can get infinite nuggets.”

“Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say that I’m very glad you found your way to the Sparrow Academy, instead,” the hostess told him, to a smattering of applause. She flashed a playful smile. “Besides, what else would you do with your powers? The pope’s not really known for crime-fighting.”

The audience laughed again, but a shadow passed over Tumaini’s face. 

When the guffawing had died down, he said, with careful deliberation, “I think that God gives everyone their gifts, and that to not use them to do His work is among the gravest sins. So, yes—for me, being a superhero is the most righteous path.”

There was an odd moment of quiet. He looked off into the distance, face shuttered as though he was wrestling with his thoughts. The hostess shifted in her chair.

His gaze refocused, and he cast a beaming smile out over the crowd. “But maybe I will ask to redesign the uniforms to something more stylish.”

Someone coughed, and Allison glanced up to see the other computer-user at the table giving her a disapproving look over his glasses. His gaze shifted pointedly to the ‘Quiet, Please’ sign.

“Sorry!” she mouthed, and closed the video.

“I heard a rumor this guy fucked off to a different library,” muttered Five.

“I’m pretty sure you didn’t, actually,” she said as she returned to the search page.

What would this new Number Three think of her rumoring her way to fame and fortune, she wondered? Nothing good, most likely. Here he was, thinking he was using his powers on some mission from God, whereas she’d spent a lot of years using hers to get free designer wear.

Would he take them from her, if given the chance? Put them in the hands of someone more responsible?

He seemed so likable, but the last few minutes of that video had been a little… ominous.

“Religious stuff always seems ominous to me,” Five said dismissively when she mentioned it to him. “The whole thing is predicated on the idea that there’s an all-powerful, all-knowing being who can send you to hell for not following a bunch of arbitrary rules. Pretty bleak, if you ask me.”

“Spoken like a true heathen,” Allison teased.

He snorted and flipped his notebook closed. “Like you’re any better.”

“I used to go to church with Ray sometimes.” She wound her hair around her finger. “One time Patrick took me to this spiritual… I don’t know, walk-in clinic? This lady had me meditate with a crystal balanced on my head, and then she told me I could treat urinary tract infections at home with oil made from acai berries.”

Five cocked an eyebrow at her.

“I rumored Patrick into not going there anymore,” she confessed. “I… don’t have any regrets about that, to be honest.”

He nodded. “Did him a favor, really.”

{}{}{}{}{}

As a rule, stakeouts sucked.

They involved sitting still, and staying vigilant, and sometimes required silence, none of which were things Klaus excelled at.

This wasn’t the worst afternoon he’d spent locked in a car, though. Talking was permitted. They had snacks. And, he had to say, the company was choice.

Luther hadn’t offered more than a weak ‘Do you think you need that?’ when Klaus went to stretch his legs and returned with an energy drink. If Diego had been there, he’d have punched it straight out of his hands, but Luther was a big pushover. Maybe because he was so top-heavy.

Vanya was cool with him pawing at her when the proximity to their childhood house of horrors started to overwhelm him. He wasn’t sure if she could tell how much he needed the physical contact or if she was just too polite to throw some ‘bows his way, but she never complained, even when he tried to braid her hair and turned it into a knot that broke new ground in geometry.

And then there was Noor. Making fun of him a little bit, sure, but also listening attentively to his rambling stories. Klaus kind of liked them, he’d decided. And what was better, he thought Noor kind of liked him, too.

“—and then I was like, ‘Do you know who I am? I’m the motherfucking _Séance.’_ But I guess they don’t really care about celebrities at Jiffy Lube, because they kicked me out anyway.”

“The nerve,” Noor commiserated.

“Right? Oh—” He gestured with the Pop Tart he’d brought for lunch. “The Séance was my superhero name. Just FYI.”

Noor nodded. “I know. Same timeline,” they said, then snapped their fingers at Luther. “Spaceboy.”

In the front seat, Luther turned the binoculars over in his hands. “You… remember that,” he said sheepishly.

“It made an impression,” Noor told him. They leaned sideways to see Vanya. “Yours I don’t know.”

She turned around, blinking her way out of a trance. The stakeout was serious business to her—Diego, bless his hypervigilant soul, would be proud.

“Oh,” she said. “Well. I wasn’t really part of the Umbrella Academy stuff, so… I didn’t have a code name.”

If _that_ didn’t sound like the saddest thing in the world.

Klaus leaned forward, scattering the cellophane food wrappers next to him all over the floor of the car. “We should come up with one! How does ‘Beethoven’s Revenge’ strike you?”

Vanya looked at him in the rear view as though to check if he was being serious.

He smiled. She did not.

“The Sound,” Luther suggested, his eyes trained forward. “Or, like… Sound… Woman?”

“No thank you,” Vanya said politely.

“Yeah, it has to marry the concepts of music and homicide.” Klaus strummed his fingers on the headrest. “The Musician Who Kills People.”

At the look on Vanya’s face, he added, “Sometimes. The Musician Who Kills People Sometimes But Generally Prefers Non-Violent Solutions.”

Noor crunched an almond between their back teeth. “Catchy.”

“The Sound and the Fury.” Luther lowered his binoculars and crinkled his nose. “No, that would probably turn into a copyright thing,” he mumbled to himself.

“Guys, I appreciate the idea, but I don’t need an alias,” said Vanya. She did one of her awkward little shrugs. “The Umbrella Academy isn’t really even a thing anymore. So.”

God, it was almost like she didn’t _want_ a mortifying nickname of her very own. Too bad— being included in the family meant being included in the childhood shame.

“So, you have sound powers,” Luther mused out loud, entirely oblivious to her lack of interest, “you can float… you kind of glow…”

He drew in a breath, struck by inspiration. “The White Violin.”

Vanya tilted her head at him, brows lifting as she considered it.

“Not bad, but before we rush into anything, hear me out,” said Klaus. He cleared his throat and spread his hands. _“Murder-zart.”_

{}{}{}{}{}

**Number Four- Prince Charming**

“That is not his superhero name.”

“It is.”

“There’s just no way.”

“See for yourself.”

Allison scooted her chair over to see what Five was pointing at.

Oh, God, he was right. She’d always thought the moniker the media had saddled poor Luther with was bad, but this blew ‘Spaceboy’ straight out of the water.

“That’s terrible,” she said in sympathy. “Can you imagine being on a date and having to tell them you’re nicknamed after a Disney character?”

Five began to write on his notepad. “I don’t think he’s doing much dating,” he said. “Dad seems to be marketing him as some kind of family-friendly eunuch.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said, a smirk playing around his lips, “I just read an interview transcript where he said his favorite movie is _Toy Story,_ and his favorite book is _Super Fudge._ He was twenty-eight at the time.”

Allison shrugged, unconvinced. “Toy Story’s pretty great, honestly.”

“He did a whole ad campaign about finishing your vegetables.”

“Good acting roles can be hard to find.”

“He collects Beanie Babies.”

“People have hobbies, Hiram.”

“He doesn’t drink.”

“…Oh.”

The world was full of abstaining adults, of course. But ones who’d been raised by _their_ father? It didn’t seem possible.

Allison scrolled the page up to scrutinize Four’s face. Strong jaw, dimpled chin. Classic floppy white boy hair. Attractive, but not the kind anyone had sexual fantasies about. The same could be said for his powers—flight was cool, but in a fun, non-threatening way.

He was basically Kidz Bop: The Guy.

Five jabbed his pen at the screen. “Remember that face,” he said. “You’re looking at a future serial killer.”

Allison rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. Wholesome people do exist, you know.”

“I think the word you’re looking for—” He circled something on his paper with a dramatic twist of his wrist—“is neutered.”

She recoiled in disgust. That was certainly _not_ the word she’d been looking for. Ew.

“Agree to disagree?” she proposed.

Five nodded. “Sure. We can revisit this discussion after he opens fire in a shopping mall.”

Allison wheeled herself back to her own station, sighing all the way. “Someday, you’ll find a glass that’s half full. I’m not giving up on you.”

“Half full of bourbon, I hope.”

…Mm. Bourbon.

Allison wasn’t even a heavy drinker, but she hadn’t had so much as a glass of wine at dinner in over a month.

She sighed again. Five might have a point. Something just wasn’t _right_ with Prince Charming.

{}{}{}{}{}

Sunny slammed the hood of the car shut. The rental clerk, hovering anxiously at the edge of the lot, winced at the noise.

“The Corolla looks alright,” she said. “I’m fine with this one.”

“Cool,” Diego said distractedly.

“Unless you have your eye on something else.”

“Sounds good.”

“What?”

“Fine by me.”

Before relieving Klaus and company at the stakeout, he and Sunny had stopped to rent out a second set of wheels. Five had warned him, this morning, that it was going to be a process, because Sunny was extremely particular about cars.

Diego had figured he’d just hang back and let her do her thing—he wasn’t much of a car guy, himself. As long as it had four wheels and went vroom, who gave a fuck?

Then he saw it. 

A Chevy Camaro. Black, with seats he bet were real leather. All sleek lines and aerodynamic sculpting, and, he knew, an engine inside that would put any car he’d ever owned to shame. It couldn’t be _that_ fancy if it was sitting here in a rental lot, but he still couldn’t decide if he wanted to drive it or have sex with it.

It was an action hero car, and his inner fourteen-year-old was crying out in longing.

Gravel crunched behind him, and then Sunny was drawing up to his side.

“A Super Sport,” she commented. “You like them?” 

Diego shrugged. “Just looking,” he said gruffly. Then, unable to resist, “How fast d’you think it can go?”

“They can do around 265, usually.”

He choked. _“What?”_

“Kilometers,” she clarified. “265 kilometers per hour. That’s… what, 165 miles?”

Jesus. Yeah. That made more sense.

“Still fast,” he said.

“Mm.”

Sunny studied him for a second, eyes probing, then seemed to come to a decision. She nodded at the Camaro.

“I’ll tell them we want this one.”

Diego turned in disbelief as she started towards the clerk, who was pink-faced with the stress of watching her fiddle with vehicles she hadn’t yet signed a contract to rent.

“Seriously?” he asked. “You’re going to go with a _fun_ car?”

Fuck, that sounded ruder out loud than in his head. This was what his siblings meant when they said he rubbed people the wrong way, wasn’t it?

Sunny didn’t seem bothered, though.

“They’re pretty sensible for a performance car series, really,” she said, then shot him a vague smile over her shoulder. “And fast is good.”

Diego looked back to the Camaro, gleaming like a budget Batmobile in the middle of the lot.

He smiled to himself. Motherfucking _stakeout!_

{}{}{}{}{}

**Number Five- The Question**

_New message to: Wyatt_

_H_

_?_

_HeLlo it is fiv_

_u good dude_

_ye7_

_ye7_

_I cbnt typ on thi s fvcking th_

_@_

_Hi Wyatt, this is Allison. Five and I were hoping you could do us a favor._

_\---_

It was hard to fathom a superhero duller than the new Number Five.

She was a pinch-faced creature with limp, unloved hair. If she had ever done a solo interview it wasn’t archived on the Internet, but in every Sparrow Academy popularity poll, she raced straight to the bottom. She looked like the kind of person who would have cats and food allergies where her personality was supposed to be, and whose name, if she’d had one, would be constantly mixed up with other people’s.

The most interesting thing about her was that no one seemed to know what her powers were. And even _that_ wasn’t a mystery anybody was rushing to solve.

“Dad must have banned reporters from asking her,” Allison said in frustration, scrolling through another page of fruitless search results. “Like how he’d cut Q and A sessions short if they brought up the time Klaus mooned the Vice President.”

Five stopped typing. “Fuck, I’d forgotten about that.”

He gazed off into space, lips quirked at one corner. “That was a good day.”

Klaus and their father would disagree. Also the Vice President, probably.

\---

_We are researching the Sparrow Academy, but there is not much info on their No. 5._

_Yea bc shes the question not the answer aha_

_Sry this is serious im not really laughing_

_Yes, okay. Would you be able to spy on her to find out what her powers are?_

\--- 

Allison twirled a lock of hair around her finger. It was just so odd. Dad had been careful to limit how much the general public knew about their abilities, especially the creepier ones, like Klaus’s and Ben’s—but he’d let _some_ information slip. You couldn’t build a brand off a complete unknown, after all.

“Do you think maybe she doesn’t have any powers?” she asked.

Vanya 2.0, except for real this time.

Five shook his head. “I doubt he’d send her on missions with the rest of them if she didn’t.” He leaned back in his chair, contemplating the computer screen. “My guess is they’re something too weird for primetime.”

Allison bit her lip. “Or too dangerous.”

Suddenly, the thought of Luther and Klaus and Vanya being so close to her sent a frisson of nerves down her spine.

Five seemed to have had the same idea, because he met her eyes, frowning.

“I know who can find out for us.”

\---

_sure i can do that_

_The only problem is our father knows about you, so if you talk to her, she will know that you’re a telepath. You would need to be very careful._

_okay ya I can be sneaky af no worries_

_but they cant do much about it if i get caught_

_if u call 911 and say a guy broke in ur brain_

_they will not help u_

_the way u want to be helped_

_Do people call 911 on you often?_

_:(_

{}{}{}{}{}

Klaus pretended to gag. “Someone should do a study on you.”

“It’s not that weird,” Luther argued.

“There must be a scientific explanation. Maybe you have a gene mutation of some kind.”

“I don’t.”

Vanya gnawed thoughtfully at her lip. “Being in space can change things about you, though, right? Like your brain chemistry?”

“Oh my God, guys, _plenty of people like cole slaw,”_ Luther said in exasperation. He flung a hand backwards toward Klaus. “And you have no room to talk, anyway, because you mix peanut butter with your scrambled eggs—”

Vanya let out a surprised half-laugh. “Are you pregnant?”

“Are _you?”_ Klaus shot back. “Deny it all you want, but you were eating a spoonful of mayonnaise straight out of the jar the other day. I know what I saw, Linda.”

Luther recoiled from her in horror.

“It was a clean spoon,” she said weakly.

Noor suddenly leaned forward between the two front seats, ending the family culinary debate.

“Someone’s coming outside,” they said, eyes sharp and fixed on the street.

The Academy’s front door was open, and a blonde beefcake who could have passed for an alternate dimension Luther stepped over the threshold.

“Number Four,” Noor informed them in a low voice.

He scratched at his shoulder and squinted up at the sky. Sneezed from looking at the sun. Turned in a half-circle.

Then he collected the mail from the box, shuffled back inside, and closed the door behind him.

Luther groaned, scrubbing a hand over his face as Vanya’s melted in disappointment.

“Well, _this_ has been a productive seven hours of our lives,” he muttered.

Klaus pumped his fist in the air. “When I say stake, you say out! STAKE!”

After a delay, Noor stretched their legs out in front of them and bit into one of their almonds. “I think you need another energy drink.”

Up front, Vanya was smoothing her tangled hair and checking her reflection in the mirror. “Has it been seven hours already?” she asked with a touch of anxiety. “I need to get going. My shift starts soon.”

Luther unlatched the driver’s side door. “I’ll walk you to the bus,” he offered. “I need to find a bathroom, anyway.”

Would it be in poor taste to make a fart noise with his mouth? While Klaus was debating it, Luther and Vanya got out of the car, and Luther said he’d be right back, and the moment had passed.

He made the noise anyway. To his delight, Noor snorted.

They reached forward to grab the abandoned binoculars off Vanya’s seat. Their arm seemed to elongate as they did it. It was a subtle thing—like, still in the realm of normal human proportions—but gloriously weird all the same. Klaus stared, fascinated.

“Man, I can- _not_ get over this house,” Noor commented idly, studying the arches and dips of the roofline. “I think I must have seen it on TV before, but up close, it just—” They pantomimed an explosion with their hand—“blew me away.”

They crooked an arm behind their head. “Must have cost a fortune. What’s the square footage on it?”

Christ, he didn’t know. 666?

“I think it’s measured in ‘feetage,’ actually,” said Klaus. “That’s how they do it when your house is big enough to qualify for its own member of Congress.”

Noor huffed out a laugh. “You know, Klaus,” they said, raising the binoculars to their face, “I’m glad you and I got the chance to meet.”

In his shoes, Klaus’s toes curled in pleasure.

He’d always had a hard time making friends. He didn’t know why—he was probably one of the sexiest people alive, charming, a great dancer, smelled good, generous with his cocaine back in the bad old days, fun to talk to, basically the best time you could have with your clothes on—but people tended to hold him at arm’s length.

Maybe it was the general aura of tragedy clinging to him that put them off.

Or his habit of stealing their stuff. He’d gotten a lot of negative feedback about that.

“Me, too,” he told Noor.

“I think we have a lot in common.” They cocked their head to the side and smiled at him. “For example: you don’t want to be on this stakeout any more than I do.”

Klaus shifted under their gaze. There was something calculated in it.

“I don’t mind it,” he demurred.

Noor hummed and redirected their attention to the Academy.

“Sure. You’ve got family obligations. And I’ve got friend obligations because Sunny’s my ride or die, but from where I’m sitting, all of this—” They spun one hand in vague loop, indicating the two of them, the car, the house, the entire set of circumstances that had brought them there—“looks like a fresh, hot cup of Not My Problem.”

He scooted his butt around in the seat a little more. Maybe he shouldn’t have had that energy drink. His legs felt restless all of a sudden.

“Soooo, you want to ditch it, or…?”

“No, I’m here now. But I figure so long as I am, I might as well be getting something out of it.”

Noor’s gaze slid sideways to meet his. Their face, in this form, had a certain foxlike quality to it, a hint in the curve of their mouth, a suggestion in their glittering eyes.

“Are you coming on to me?” Klaus asked.

After a second of naked shock, Noor’s expression shifted to polite incredulity.

“Klaus,” they said, “you’re unemployed, and you’re squatting in an abandoned house, and you spent half the morning talking like a Swedish puppet. Would _you_ come on to you?”

…Oh. In one sense, that was a relief. In another, it was the most crushing thing he’d heard in weeks.

“I thought it was funny,” he said mournfully.

Noor waved the binoculars in a lazy arc. “It was hilarious,” they said. “But if I wanted someone who’s broke and can make me laugh, this city is full of comedy clubs.”

Ha, _burn._

Klaus folded his legs up, making himself comfortable in the nest of empty cans and sandwich wrappers around him.

“I’d rather just be friends, anyway,” he admitted. “It’s great being with the fam and all, but I still get lonely sometimes.”

He sighed and let his head fall back. “It’s just, us getting along is still so _new,_ you know? I keep wondering if I’m being too much, and then I think ‘what if they only put up with me because we’re related?’ and I know that’s not true, because we were always related and they didn’t always put up with me, but I was kind of the odd one out of the super squad when we were kids and it’s hard to break out of the mindset that none of them actually like me very m—"

“Klaus,” Noor interrupted with a note of impatience. “Do you want to rob your Dad?”

He lifted his head back up. Ooh. _This_ was awkward.

“Um…” He clapped his hands together under his chin. “So, here’s the thing—yes, I would _love_ to, buuut I’m kind of doing some work on myself, and I think part of that needs to be cutting back on shenanigans. So… no. Even though, again, it’s a fantastic idea, and I appreciate being included in this business opportunity.”

Noor’s mouth pulled as they sucked their teeth. Their gaze on him was steady and inscrutable, and Klaus’s heart sank as he waited for it—the exact moment when he’d see them write him off.

Being a better him was the _worst._

“Suit yourself.”

Noor hooked an arm around the head rest of the driver’s seat and slung themselves into it in a practiced motion.

“Tell me the rest of this Jiffy Lube story,” they instructed, adjusting the settings on the binoculars. “I’ll buy you another Red Bull if you do it in the puppet voice.”

Klaus’s spirits soared.

“So they kicked me out of the stoooore, bort, bort—"

{}{}{}{}{}

**Number Six- The Hound**

Number Six may have gotten the short end of the stick, power-wise, but Allison had to give credit where it was due—she seemed to be having fun with it.

She was a sparkplug of a woman, short and hippy, with wide-set eyes and a gap between her front teeth. In an interview, she had once claimed that the fictional superhero she most identified with was Scooby-Doo, and a compilation video entitled ‘EIGHT AND A HALF MINUTES OF THE HOUND SNORT LAUGHING’ had close to two million views.

She was uncool in the most relatable way, and it had netted her a small but dedicated fanbase.

There was a website for her, buried six pages deep in the search results. It looked… cheap, Allison thought, even to her inexpert eye, but it had caught her attention. Because there, in between the posts squealing over Number Six’s photorealistic tattoo of a slice of pizza and declaring her an icon for spilling a Slurpee on an $8000 dress she’d been put in for a photoshoot, were messages from the woman herself.

The story they told read like a slow-reveal horror script.

**xXTheHoundXx** wrote:

thank you, but I didn’t do my own makeup for this pic. U can tell bc I don’t look like I just escaped from the 1980s haha

**xXTheHoundXx** wrote:

Sorry….. 5s powers are a secret. Id get in so much fkn trouble if I told anybody lol

**xXTheHoundXx** wrote:

lmfao no we don’t get grounded anymore!! I mean get in trouble like he takes our drivers license away or we get locked out of our bank account or w/e

**xXTheHoundXx** wrote:

_“keeping someone’s mail from them is literally illegal”_

wait for real?

**xXTheHoundXx** wrote:

well its his house so we have to follow his rules I guess

**xXTheHoundXx** wrote:

Ive thought about it but idk where id go

**xXTheHoundXx** wrote:

It doesn’t matter anyway….. u guys on here are all the friends I need 😊

Allison rested her chin in her hands. “These poor kids,” she murmured.

Next to her, Five was writing again in his notepad. “Adults,” he corrected.

Technically true, but she had a hard time seeing them like that. Adults were free to make their own decisions and mistakes and friends and way in the world. She wasn’t sure the Sparrow Academy was free to make their own lunches.

“I do wonder why it is that all of them stayed when all of us left, though,” said Five. “It can’t be because Dad treats them better.”

She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, spinning it slowly. “Different group dynamics,” she suggested. “We lost two members. It changed things.”

Five darted an unreadable glance in her direction.

“Speak for yourself,” he muttered, hunching down over his notes. “I can’t remember a time when I _wasn’t_ planning an exit strategy.”

Allison smiled at him. “What about the rest of us? Were we invited?”

He nodded, then said drily, “I had a vague idea that we’d buy our own house and experiment with our powers however we wanted. Vanya would be there to provide first aid and refreshments.”

“Sounds realistic.”

“You haven’t heard the best part.” He looked up to meet her gaze, a rueful smile tugging at his lips. “We were going to fund all this by charging five dollars per autograph.”

Allison stifled a laugh. “You always _were_ the smart one, Ebenezer.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Diego liked to think he had pretty good instincts about people, but for the life of him, he could _not_ figure out Sunny.

She’d used to kill people for a living, but she was unfailingly polite. She was calm and measured and reasonable, but had willingly wrapped herself up in this bullshit burrito with the rest of them. She had rented a badass car because he liked it, but _wouldn’t let him drive the bitch._

“Noor let Luther drive,” he grumbled, arms crossed over his chest as they whizzed through the streets.

“I’m not Noor.”

“You let me drive the other car.”

“The other car can’t go 165 miles per hour.”

Diego grunted and turned to look out the window. All he’d wanted was to feel like a budget James Bond for an hour. Why did he even bother getting his hopes up for things?

It was just on the cusp of evening, and a light drizzle had kicked up. An old movie theater was receding from view on their left, which meant it was just three more blocks to the Academy. They were a bit ahead of schedule, but Diego was eager to get started, and he was sure Luther and Klaus were eager to get away from one another by now.

Other cars passed. Pedestrians scurried by. A newsstand vendor was scooping armfuls of papers up out of the rain, and then Diego spotted a face he’d seen before.

“Stop!” he barked, lurching forward in his seat. He pointed at a hoodie-wearing figure as it ducked down a side street. “That’s one of them!”

Sunny leaned over the steering wheel to try to catch a glimpse. “From the Sparrow Academy?” she asked. “Which one?”

“I don’t know their fucking names.” Diego’s heart quickened as the seconds stretched between them and their quarry. “Just—go after her!”

Sunny clipped across three lanes of traffic with the precision of a neurosurgeon. There was a near miss with a flatbed, but she was already threading the needle between the truck and the minivan beside it by the time Diego said “Watch out!” and, okay, _maybe_ she was better at handling this much horsepower than he would have been.

“I don’t see Noor’s car,” she said, unconcerned by the angry blaring of horns behind them. “Do you?”

“No.” Blood was pounding a drumbeat in his skull. “She must’ve got out without them noticing somehow. Here, turn here!”

They might have skidded for a split second. It was over so fast he couldn’t be sure, but Sunny hung a hard right, and—

Diego stared out at the empty street. The windshield wipers thumped away, clearing the mist of rain.

Sunny turned to him. “You’re going to laugh at me,” she said, her husky voice uncertain, “but remind me why we came down this way?”

…Fuck. Why _had_ they?

He ground a knuckle against his left temple. A wave of vertigo had rolled over him, which was weird—he’d used to get that sometimes, after an explosion had ruptured one of his eardrums when he was sixteen, but it hadn’t bothered him in years.

“We were… getting food?” he guessed. Then, with more confidence, “There’s a deli the next street over. You didn’t have to drag race to it, but I guess we beat a whole thirty seconds of traffic.”

“Right.”

Sunny shook her head like she was warding off her own dizziness.

As she eased off the brake, she flashed him a brief, thin-lipped smile. “Don’t get old,” she advised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I don't know how the Hargreeves got their superhero names in canon, but I'm just going to assume the media did it. Can you imagine Reginald naming Luther Spaceboy? It's so cute. He'd hate it.


End file.
